Suggestions for amateur translators
Suggestion
If you are fluent in two languages and often engage in translation, you can make this your profession. To engage in a professional translation, you must possess an expertise in the source language and the target language. Other than these key qualifications, you must also have a basic knowledge of specific branch for which translation is required, and most importantly, discipline in translation practice.
To be a successful translator, you must first gain competence in at least two languages. Your command on the source language fulfills the basic requirement of the professional translation. Then, you must be equally proficient in the target language. You must be aware of the segment it belongs to. For example, you must be well aware of the crux of the source language, its meaning along with the syntactic structure, nuances of the stylistic devices, the language tenor and its mode, and the cultural context. You must do complete justice to the target language as the reader of your translation may be able to read and speak only the target language. Therefore, you must be very careful about choosing the words and their organization to convey the intended meaning clearly.
Usually all languages are grouped into different genres on the basis of content and purpose of text. In case of English, it can be classified as news English, English for science and technology, English for drama, daily life, and so on. Similar is the case with all other languages. A professional translator must be aware of the segment of translation text. Discipline is another important aspect of professional translation. Successful translators prepare a detailed plan and targets for daily translation in such a manner that they are able to give time to daily chores and family and also able to complete translation work with best possible quality.
In conclusion, I can say that professional translation is not as easy or casual as it seems. To provide high quality professional translation services to your clients, you must be precise and master at least two languages along with all the technicalities of the language. You must make some efforts to accumulate knowledge about the specific branches of your translation work. Your translation may have a positive impact if you are aware about some technical aspects of specific segment. Last, but not the least, you must develop yourself as a true disciplinarian when it comes to professional translation and strictly follow a day by day plan.
Do you have any suggestions for amateur translators? You can even follow this topic on the TranslationArtwork.com community on LinkedIn. And if you are not a member of our online community on LinkedIn then just click here.
Speaking as a translator who has been in the industry for just over two years, I have found that:
1. Agencies WANT translators who translate into their mother tongue. People who have their target language as their third or fourth language do not know the idiom of the language as well as a mother tongue speaker. Believe me, I tried this twice, with disastrous consequences – never again!
2. I do find that agencies love translators who can profess to be experts in their field. The best would be if you are an ex-lawyer now doing legal translations. So, rather concentrate on two or three (maximum) areas of specialisation. It will serve you well in the long run.
Hi Lia,
Thanks for sharing your experience with others on this community. Well, having an experience of above 2 years, I guess you have crossed the first barrier and are no more an amateur translator.
By the way, you did not mention your language combinations.
Ronald
Opinions can vary on this, but I translate quite a lot of marketing texts and magazine articles and have found that the best policy is not to be afraid to go away from the source text (within reason, of course), and that this is something that less experienced translators tend to lack the confidence to do.
Often in more creative-style texts, it is simply not possible to just retain the same information in the source and convey this into the target language. The best way to get around this problem is to use google as a search tool to find out more information about a given company, person or event, for example, or to ask the client, and to then adapt the information given in the source so that the target reads well and is accessible for your target audience.
Your translation should still retain the information in and tone of the source, but plus or minus any information you deem necessary for the style, flow, readability and accessibility of the target text. Make sure though that you do your research properly and are 100% certain that any information that you are adding in for this purpose is “true and accurate”!
Hey Rachel – Thanks for that wonderful tip. What you have suggested is so very true.
I would only like to say, from my experience over the last 5 years as a German > English translator, that the way to go is to become a paid member of at least one Translation Services website such as:
(1) Proz.com
(2) Translatorsbase.com
(3) Translatorpub.com
(4) Gotranslators.com
Though the investment may appear to be somewhat steep for an amateur (ranging from EUR 50 to upwards of EUR 100 at times) for a one-year membership, it is value for money, believe me. This is where patience and perseverance is the name of the game. After all, as they say in English, “Nothing venture, nothing gain”, so being a paid member means that you can apply to new customers for jobs that are posted by them and if you showcase yourself and your capabilities well enough, the sky is the limit…! In hindsight, I feel that I owe my success more to my patience and perseverance and also, to my conviction and confidence that I would “make it” that has got me to where I am today, with at least a dozen regular clients from various countries who more than just keep me on my toes all the while…! This is where TranslationArtwork.com is a blessing in disguise, too, since they offer membership free of charge! So, for those wanting to be frugal to begin with, this is the way to go…
Naresh
I too think that it’s important to translate into your native language, though I’ve found this to be far more critical in the pair I deal with, from Japanese, into English. I’ve done a lot of comic book and light novel translation in the past; my history as an amateur writer before I tried learning Japanese (a long process that started some dozen years ago) was invaluable in helping me understand how to put the thoughts, concepts and ideas I was seeing in Japanese, into good, legible, entertaining English. I could have diverted more from the source if that was my job but, in my case, it was explicitly not my job, so I focused on good copy that was still pretty literal translating, just sounding far more natural.
At any rate, you just need to really understand the nuances of the language you’re translating into. I was educated so heavily in French that I understand it very fluidly, though I’m rusty now (hey, I was learning Japanese!) and would hesitate to try and translate anything into French but, it’d still be far easier to do so than with Japanese, since the latter is the more complex language and I don’t have the extreme level of familiarity with it that I could claim when I was in school with my French. Either way, it is a good idea to first be very polished in your mother tongue – surprising numbers of people aren’t, even among translators, and good communication skills are very valuable to agencies and clients.
Once some payments arrive I’ll be looking to follow Naresh Advani’s advice above and gain access to the information on those pro translation web sites. Even so, I’d love to see this web site succeed on some level with its free membership. I think it’s a very good idea. We’ll see where it leads.
Another couple of my tips to copy over from the initial discussion on LinkedIn:
1.
ALWAYS check things you are unsure about, either with the client or a native speaker.
2.
Whenever I was training/mentoring junior translators in my in-house roles, I always encouraged them to always print out their work in order to proofread it on paper, and to then also print out the updated version (i.e. after any changes made on paper have been entered on screen) in order to tick off changes against the initial proofread text, as it is just all too easy to overlook errors on screen, such as deletion of now obsolete parts of changed sentences and forgetting to make changes on screen that you wanted to make. I have seen many cases of incorrect, and therefore poor, final versions of translations due to such unintentional but completely avoidable errors…
[...] lot of guidance along with some tips and trick. So don’t forget to read the article – Tips for Amateur Translators . Would you like to share some experience with those who are about to learn a new langauge. I think [...]
Hi Naresh,
Thanks for your comment. I’ve recently started as a freelance translator and decided to join Proz.com. I was not sure if it was going to be money well spent, since there are thousands of members, but your comment really helped me to put things more into perspective. Languages and translating have always been and still are my passion. Translating is not really “work” for me, it’s something that I really enjoy doing, I guess most people here will know what I mean. And these days, doing what you love AND getting paid for it is a real luxury. So I’ll play the waiting game, because I’m to stubborn to give up!
Benny De Becker
The very first potential and imminent difficulty that amateurs (I would say beginners) would face will be some agencies and other outsources that try to abuse the lack of experience of amateur translators, try to convince them work for unreasonably low prices.
Never yield agencies and other outsourcers and let them to abuse your service. Don’t ever offer them very low prices for two reasons:
Offering low prices will then work against you!
1) By offering very low prices, you’ll be affecting the overall market prices negatively. Don’t forget that you’ll be a part of the same market one day!
2) Offering low prices will often give the wrong message. They will think that you are probably not competitive enough and easily disposable which, in return, will affect your reputation in the future.
Of course, now you’ll ask me what that “low price” would be. There is no such definite range for all language pairs. Pricing is set by market prices and vary from one language pair to another. If you are in a widely available language pair, it is most likely that you’ll face a severe competition. I suggest that you ask someone (or some people from your language pair about their pricing structure).
As a freelance translator from English into Spanish and from Spanish into English, I can say that it is essential for a translator to be an avid reader. The more you read the wider your background becomes. A second tip I would give, IMHO, is to specialise in no more than four or five subject matters. In that way you concentrate on certain topics like Medicine, Literature, Legal matters and so on.
Besides, it is important to ask an expert on the subject matter whenever you are not sure.
As to source and target languages, I translate into my native language (Spanish) and into my second language (English) because as I am a teacher of English as a Second Language (apart from being a translator) and I’ve worked as a teacher of English for 20 years now, I feel confident enough to be able to express ideas in one or the other. I’ve been in English speaking countries and I’ve taken international exams in English.
Always interesting to follow ancool website. Thank you for the post. In addition, apart from the content , the design of your blog looks really amazing . Cheers.
Great article. Will visit again.
Great thought!
Thanks
Leave your response!
Follow Us
Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\translationartwork.com\subdomains\blog\httpdocs\wordpress\wp-content\plugins\dandyid-services\class.dandyid.php on line 68