HERE I DISCUSS WHAT I REALLY MEAN IN MY CLAIM THAT I WANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY AS A SELF-EMPLOYED TRANSLATOR. WHAT DO YOU THINK EIGHT YEARS OF IT HAS DONE TO ME, ANYWAY?
It hardly needs emphasising that I want to be taken seriously as a translator. The reason why should be obvious: I do it for a living. That said, however, I like the idea of rising higher and maybe I will one day actually be recognised as one of the best professional translators of my time… but that’s not going to happen by itself and everyone knows it. Which is why I am a whole lot more concerned than I used to be about being competitive – believe me, I would not say that unless I REALLY meant it. For I have been feeling very differently about myself in recent months as a result of this.
At any rate, I’m sure lots of people can name any number of “good” ideas which DON’T need any kind of truth to have their value validated. I know I thought of a number of such things as a child, one of the most appealing examples for me personally being the time I learned to say my name backwards i.e. I recorded myself saying it forwards, “George Trail”, before learning how to mimic exactly how it is “said” backwards when it’s played backwards, “Roy-harl’sch Sch’norsch.” But wanting to rise higher as a professional translator means, I find, doing all you can to embrace (often otherwise unmentioned) ideas which DO require the acknowledgement of some element of truth to have their value validated. I will tell you this: have you ever believed that I have had dreams about being one of the best translators in the world? Well, I couldn’t just say, “Right, tonight I will dream about being or becoming the best translator in the world as I go to sleep tonight.” What would be the point? I would know all that was coming all too well anyway – even if it were detached from reality!
Talking of which: just recently I was translating a text from French to English in which I saw this in the original: “Vitrine de gauche en entrant / vitrine de droite en entrant”. When I first saw that my very first (instantaneous) “response thought” was, “Oh, these are windows that are located at a / the entrance” – all because of the “en entrant” bit, of course. But then I took a step back and got to thinking “or are these doors which open inward?” They both seem like equally intelligent and valid ideas, don’t they? But there was no way of deducing what the correct interpretation was from reading the rest of the text in which they were found – the text that was presented to me as part of the overall translation task – alone.
A text to be translated, however challenging, remains static in content – it will never impose any kind of paradigm shift. At least, not in itself. Sometimes what is “reasoned” happens only because of what happens purely in one’s mind. It always pays to be aware of what happens to go through your mind – look up the term “apparition” and you’ll see.
Or watch Fight Club – you will NEVER forget the great twist scene in which the fundamental truth is revealed.
But it’s not limited to dealing with whatever private thoughts and concerns I come across which I don’t have to worry about leaving the confines of my study (figuratively speaking) to deal with, is it? The truth is that I’m a whole lot more sensitive to how others judge me – based on my established merits or otherwise. But far be it from me to make fun of those who just can’t do what I do (this coming from someone who was bullied at school). I am a professional translator; having done it for nearly eight years now, I can definitely say that I’ve succeeded at it, at least on the surface level. Yes, I know that there are people who can translate as well as me, or better, and good for them. But translation is also a job that a lot of people simply can’t do and won’t do; but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t many people who seriously think that they can do it well but they can’t, most likely because they are blinded by how chuffed they are that they can speak another language as well as their mother tongue. Personally, I know I will never forget how easy I found my studies of foreign languages at school, and how much I had a reputation for being an “exceptional” linguist (not to brag); but if you only remember one thing I say in this blog, let it be this point: when I translate, my number one frustration is not being able to verify / confirm choices I actually consider to be good ones with information that is not with me but then it may be, for all I know, non-existent. And I agree that being tired can cloud your judgement / disrupt your ability to think clearly… and when you start to become disinclined to accept blindly suggestions you are provided with as good / the best ones, then you’ve got a whole new ball game.
But it is agreed by the masses, and rightly so, that a certain kind of intelligence is essential for good and reliable translation work. But even that’s not enough for me – I try to reveal in lucid terms how it is done here (once again), all for the sake of my credibility and likeliness to be recommended (at least up to a point). Some may be attracted to the idea of doing translation for a living by the fact that you don’t face other people in it who will try to get the upper hand on you in some way as you perform the craft. And it’s not as if translation isn’t the same as it’s always been – for thousands of years. Even so… for all my commitment to and confidence in my job, even I have my ups and downs which I cannot always be prepared for no matter how hard I try. I could only blame myself for sustaining the idea that if I keep on fighting for circumstances where I can deservedly be sure of easy money, they will come eventually… all in vain. No – being limited by what you don’t know or understand is often worse, so to speak, than being limited than what you do know or understand. If you are going to develop an obsession for anything, make sure it is something real rather than some distorted skewed concept that only exists in your head that you have allowed to develop, and actively sustained, over time. And obsessions are known to be unhealthy – rightly so – aren’t they? So much madness has arisen from obsessions; and whether you want to hear it not, it includes that which has incited some rather terrifying examples of malevolence. At least I continue to become more aware of my own limitations over time. I would console myself by saying that there is one thing that people like more than being great, and that’s becoming great.
You have to understand that I am aiming to discuss absolute fundamentals here: not just the person I am as a translator, but the person I am at all. Indeed, I would rather tell everyone I felt rotten i.e. tired and dirty and compromised and sour inside than tell everyone that I felt like a used condom, which is supposed to mean more or less the same thing, in this case. Maybe it’s just me but I’ve come to regard that to claim that you’re feeling “like a used condom” (used as an example), while not being prepared to elaborate, suggests that you’re just a little crazy.
I want to be taken seriously as a translator and as such I claim that, if you are a hardcore one, you will always try to be as prepared as possible to justify your ever-existent yet tacit claim that you know what you are talking about in what you write as the product of your translation work. Certainly more so than this girl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l35shgmXEw , who talks all this rubbish about “pounds” and “planets” and “gravity” which is nonsensical to say the least. Who knows what’s (really) on her mind when she starts suggesting that “England is closer to Jupiter than America is”, or that “America is, like, in the middle of the solar system”, or that “England is the closest planet to the Sun”; but, if I may say so, I would find it impossible to believe that she would actually be willing to account for her blatant ignorance, or even that she could even if she really wanted to, even if I gave her a pen and some paper and allowed her 30 minutes to put it into words. She’s just too lost in thoughts which even she must know are just not grounded in reality; and, to be honest, maybe I am guilty of encouraging others to regard them with a focus and inquisitiveness that they don’t deserve. Have I made a fool of myself? If I have, too bad for me. But the fact is that I resolve to be as prepared as possible to wrestle with such thoughts when doing translation. Sometimes you simply don’t know what to expect. Call this a generalisation but languages can and do work differently, they can be not just incongruent, but wildly incongruent. I live to bridge these gaps as aptly as possible in my own creative writing – fully prepared to be inventive to make it happen.