Translator – creative within the given framework! What is a language, professional knowledge of it? Who is he – the translator: a servant, a rival or an ally? The language reflects the national vision of the surrounding world, its originality associated with the geographic location of the country, its history, religion, traditions. With the help of language, any community expresses its thoughts and desires. It is generally accepted that there are 6 world languages that are leaders in the practice of international relations.
This is, of course, English – the native language of about four hundred million people. In addition, about three hundred million use it as a means of interethnic communication. Another one and a half billion people on earth use it as the second or third in work and life. Proficiency in the language and work with a translator is a very specific and delicate issue that is practically not widely covered. The work of a translator is one of the most creative in the world, because the translation is extremely diverse – you have to switch from advertising to the terminology of a doctor, from the philosophical reasoning of a scientist to considering a protest in an international ball hockey match, etc. This requires from a professional translator not only linguistic, but also speech competence.
Perhaps this profession is not as romantic as, say, the profession of a geologist or a test pilot, but the life of a professional translator is no less interesting than the life of an engineer or seamstress. No other profession will give you such a unique opportunity to observe a wide variety of people: from presidents to ordinary peasants; in a variety of circumstances: from war to a scientific seminar. No other will give you the opportunity to see so many foreign countries, learn so many foreign customs.
Translator is a difficult profession. But the solution of translation tasks can be facilitated, and sometimes significantly, if you know the necessary minimum of information about the translation, which allows you to correctly identify these tasks and the real possibilities of their implementation. This is possible if you have the “gentleman’s set” of tools and techniques that all experienced translators are familiar with and also if you use the services of a translation agency. Style, manner of presentation, form of presentation of the material play an equally important role.
For example, one Norwegian translator said that when translating English press releases, she has to drop half of the adjectives and slightly reduce the overall enthusiasm of the presentation, otherwise readers will perceive the newsletter as an advertisement. And the Swede said that in Italian tourist brochures, the smallest attraction is presented as the eighth wonder of the world, which is completely unacceptable for the Swedish reader. It turns out that a detailed German user manual is very difficult to translate into Norwegian without the reader feeling like they are being treated like a child. After all, if the user perceives the instruction as a manual for a narrow-minded person, he can stop reading it, in the heat of the moment plug the plug into the wrong outlet and burn everything.
Thanks to talented translators, our children listen to Andersen’s tales and sing English songs. Without special training and experience accumulated over the years, a specialist with a non-linguistic higher education will never become a good translator, even with a good knowledge of a foreign language. Surely everyone faced, to one degree or another, with smart and educated people who easily took up translation, confident of success, but already on the first page faced such problems that only a professional can handle, and put the translation aside, admitting their insufficient competence … And all why? Because a professional translator knows not only a foreign language perfectly, but also knows how to speak and write correctly in his native language, i.e. not only has a large vocabulary, but also knows how to use it correctly, be able to correctly reproduce the speech style of the person he is translating.
After all, often the figurative speech of foreigners is translated not into literary Russian, but into “office”. We must not forget that for a correct translation it is necessary to have an idea of the subject in question. Let this knowledge be not deep, but it is necessary. Therefore, general development, erudition, breadth of outlook are the qualities without which it is difficult to imagine a good translator. Another thing is that knowledge of his specialty can help him translate the relevant texts, if he undergoes training as a translator and accumulates a sufficiently large translation experience.
Nowadays, high quality translation (mainly oral, both sequential and simultaneous) is required mainly by such international organizations as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the like, as well as large foreign firms. Mainly it allows you to climb the career ladder, the opportunity to see and learn much more than another profession could give you, to be a well-paid high-class translator, i.e. have a high and stable salary and at the same time do not forget what the founders of the famous Geneva school of translators said: “At international conferences, the translator is paid not for the translation, but for the way he speaks.” This clearly shows the future perspective and therefore there is where it is striving. Go for it! AND YOU WILL NOT REGRET!