The path to becoming a translator

THE PATH TO BECOMING (OR SHOULD THAT BE “BEING?”) A TRANSLATOR

It’s a translator’s life…
Anyone who has read any of my previous comments on my business Facebook account will doubtless understand that not only do I agree that translation is definitely not just about replacing words with words; I personally go to greater lengths than most to explain it… and I don’t always specifically have to lean on examples from my work as professional translator. That said, however, those who actually agree to do translation professionally soon become aware of the need to appreciate and embrace several things that they don’t understand as well as many that they do. Some of it is purely grounded in the domain of the true linguistic aptitude required to do professional translation projects, while some of it is more about business skills, awareness and innovation capacity. That said, however, I’ve written this comment to discuss the linguistic competence and talents of the individual vs. the challenges of translation (once again). By “the challenges of translation” I am of course talking about both the obvious ones and the subtle ones, which are not always properly appreciated (don’t just take my word for it). And while it should be irrefutable that I have done this already in previous comments, I just had to share with you my latest little work “anecdotes” such as I have described in my previous comment.

The first one is related to a very big proofreading job I did recently. In the material of this one I saw, “We are pleased with your decision in favour of Rolls-Royce Germany.” I don’t know about you but the first time I read that, my tacit interpretation of it in the back of my mind was, “This is Rolls-Royce Germany addressing a customer who has recently bought something from them.” Actually, when I read it right now – literally, as I was writing these words you are currently reading – I was thinking, “Why wasn’t my tacit interpretation of it in the back of my mind like, ‘Rolls-Royce Germany are thanking someone for choosing them to sponsor as part of some sponsorship event’ until now? No, wait! With the money that Rolls-Royce has, would they really be much on the lookout for people wanting to sponsor them? I don’t think so.” And it wasn’t that much later before I was thinking, “You know, George, how come your tacit interpretation of this phrase was never ‘Rolls-Royce Germany are expressing their gratitude to someone over some legal dispute?’ until now? Doesn’t that sound much more convincing than the sponsorship one?”

With all that out of the way, here is the point where I tell you what the subject matter of this material which required proofreading really was. It was documentation containing email correspondence templates relevant to the recruitment of staff at Rolls-Royce Germany. In this regard, the correspondence containing the sentence “We are pleased with your decision in favour of Rolls-Royce Germany.” was aimed at whoever had expressed an interest in working for Rolls-Royce Germany, addressed to them by Rolls-Royce Germany themselves. I say this because I knew damn well that it was essentially my unwritten responsibility to “know” it, or I might not have understood what I was doing – how could I put it more lucidly? If it is true that you never know what you’ll remember sometimes (which is probably just as well, as it suggests that it makes life worth living; but that’s another subject), then I think that it’s also true that there’s an at least fair chance that you will remember that scenario or one just like it when you next do a translation task (professional or otherwise) depending on what the material is and your knowledge of its topic.
Those of us who have seen the Matrix will remember that, in the world of it, a person can essentially learn anything through the “Construct” computer program at literally the touch of a button. It’s where Neo gets his “training” from. There’s no denying that, as good a film as it is, it’s over-the-top fantasy: how else to explain the bit where Neo and Trinity see a helicopter and Neo says, “Can you fly that thing?” and Trinity says, “Not yet.” before calling Tank and having him imbue her with a full knowledge of how to fly that helicopter within a brief moment on the spot, while she and Neo just stand there? But if that sort of thing could actually be done… well, I’m sure that there must be limits as to what can be learned without any investment of independent thinking (about stuff other than that which is directly experienced) – even when Neo learns combat training in the Matrix, there’s a reason why Morpheus personally accompanies him in it at one point i.e. the sparring program bit. In the case of translating, I consider what is mentioned in the two previous paragraphs an example.

Since I’m talking about machines: I sincerely doubt I’m the only one who’s ever secretly wished that they could do anything a machine could – imagine how much easier that would make my life, and how much it would increase my productivity. But no, I should remember that I’m human (or I might go insane or something, you know?). Mind you, “machine translators” are anything but infallible; I know I’ve gone on and on about that one before. And the truth is that, however many calculations they can do in a second or whatever, even machines get “confused” – just look at Windows error messages.

Here’s the second of the anecdotes I was talking about at the end of the first paragraph. This one pertains to a translation project, German to English, the subject matter being instructions on how to use certain sealants / adhesive products. According to the glossary I was provided, “Einlegezeit” meant “working time”, which I certainly never would have thought of on the first pass: I would have guessed “insertion time” i.e. “Einlegen” meaning “insert” in English and “Zeit” meaning time. I want to make it clear that I fully understood that “insertion” was a reference to the concept of “inserting” an adhesive product into a crack in a floorboard or whatever. But when you think about it, it’s not talking about how long it takes / how long you should take applying it – why say something like that? You probably don’t need me to explain the rest but I’ll do it anyway: “Einlegezeit” – “working time” – means the amount of time that a given adhesive product takes to set in a crack after it’s been applied there; how long you should wait before it is OK to walk all over it or whatever. But how do you explain that meaning of “working time” to someone who has never heard of this aspect of DIY before? We can look at the entries of a bilingual glossary and debate whether or not a given term in one language for a given in term in another language is what it is purely by prescriptive declaration, but I guess that, in an oblique kind of way, “working time” is a perfectly fitting translation of “Einlegezeit” – or should that be the other way round?
I still have my language education certificates, now stored as files on a USB stick, ready to show to anyone I apply for work for whenever the need arises. But, whatever the extent of achievement and proving myself they represent may be, it really does seem a fair bit away from the roller-coaster rides I’ve learned to become accustomed to as an actual professional translator…