Today is September 30,
the day of our patron saint, St Jerome, known as a translator of the Bible from
ancient Greek and From Hebrew to Latin. You may remember him late at
night, and with a hard deadline to meet, but I hope you also remember the advice
of that letter.
1. Study hard and study all the time.
Study your mother tongue
as much as you study your second language. Grammatical rules change, are
forgotten, false
cognates deceive even the most attentive linguist, spelling
agreements are concluded, new entering are included in the dictionary.
Do not lose your love of
language, by carving meanings, diving into dictionaries.
And study, study
hard. Your translations will be better for this.
2. Don't make technology your enemy
Think of the translator
who was reluctant to abandon the typewriter over the computer, thinking that
the computer would be just a "passing grind." Think of the
translator who didn't bet on the internet. It is impossible to think of
the craft of translation nowadays without these tools. CAT Tools aren't
that complicated, talk to a friend translator, search for a video on YouTube,
take a course.
But always be willing to
incorporate new technologies into your work, this will make you a more
flexible, more productive and sought after professional.
3. Cultivate relationships
Many translators work
alone, but you should not feel isolated by your profession. Talk and
befriend translation colleagues, go to events in the area, both congresses and
lunches. If you work with translation agencies,meet your projectmanagers. Have a good relationship
with your customers.
If the distance is not a
hindrance, visit your customers (whether they are direct customers or
translation agencies).
4. Choose your specialty areas well
Translation and interpretation have
wide fields of activity. Choose areas that you have affinity and
knowledge. It is not necessary to be a lawyer to work with legal texts,
but it is important to have experience in the area, study hard and
research. By the way, the research is my next piece of advice.
5. Search a lot, but always check the font
The internet greatly
facilitated the research process for translation. Just a few clicks and
your favorite search engine will tell you thousands or millions of pages that
may contain the answer to your question.
But remember that not
every site is reliable, not all information on the internet is true.
6. Comply with the combined
Think hard before you
accept a job or a deadline, know your limits not to accept something that is
beyond your ability. It is better to refuse a job than to tarnish your
reputation with delays or misdone translations.
Translation is a wonderful profession, and like any other profession,
some moments are tiring, of a lot of work and little time. But there is an
indescribable satisfaction in delivering a great job to your client, an
inenacable pleasure in finding the perfect word for that term in another language
that torments you for hours and turning off the computer at the end of the day
with the feeling of duty Fulfilled.
