JAFERRER GERMAN/ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS SERVICES

Whence cometh the true professionals? Are they born or bred? If born, can we develop a brain scan system to detect their ability and then nurture it? If bred, can we identify and then duplicate the ideal conditions to create a translator? More importantly, what do we do now, when we can’t answer the above questions? And most importantly, what do we do as freelance translators to become more professional ourselves and enhance the level of professionalism in our industry.

The True Professional

I am going to make a hazy but important distinction here. I believe there are translators and then there are professional translators. The former are people who translate on the side, using their knowledge of a particular field to translation work. For instance, in a previous article, I referred to a mathematician who translated a book on advanced mathematics from French to English. I do not consider him a professional translator.

Professional translators are applied linguists whose ability to work with language, write well, and for free-lancers, to operate a business, represents their source of income. Professional translators are people who are dedicated to their languages and the nations, societies, and cultures which come with them. They are devoted to improving their ability to understand their source language and write in their target language. They recognize that translation is both an art and a skill. As such, they are also committed to deepening their knowledge of the fields they translate in, and to cultivating greater facility for writing about such matters. They also have nurtured a deep respect for business ethics, aware that they are in many instances the communications conduit for a product or service, for information or opinion, and so must consider the consequences of their linguistic decisions. Finally, professional translators know that they can always improve and polish their translation ability.

Professional translators are also distinguished by certain attitudes and approaches to their work. In this article, I want to take a close look at these attitudes and approaches and help clarify what a professional translator is and how we can all become more professional about being a translator.

Unlike the medical or legal professions, there are no precise academic or professional prerequisites to be a translator. This is a boon for those talented individuals who want to get started in the translation industry and a bane for those people trying to identify true professionals. The only requirement a translator must fulfill is knowing two or more languages. Anything less is rather hard to accept.

Virtually all professional translators in the United States have at least a Bachelor’s degree, and translation vendors will rarely if ever work with a translator who does not have an undergraduate education. Often these degrees are in language studies, or some related field. However, some translators have degrees in their field of specialization and have academic language training as a college minor. Others have advanced degrees in translation itself. Still others have little if any formal academic language training, instead having learned their languages either in the home or while living abroad.

Translators have to be able to write, so you might assume that translators have formal academic training as writers and professional writing experience. I have found little evidence for this. Few translators I know truly love writing; to most it seems to be merely an essential aspect of translation. However, most professional translators do have a deep interest in writing, be it as a necessary tool or an art form.

Finally, virtually all translators have a well developed knowledge of one or more specialized fields, such as finance, law, including in particular patent and corporate law, computer science, medicine, pharmaceuticals, and so on. This is not to say that translators are experts per se in such fields, but they do have enough knowledge to read, understand, and then translate common material in the field. And very few translators will ever develop such in-depth knowledge in more than a few fields.