There’s considerable controversy about whether the Father of Translators was Saint Jerome who translated the Bible into Latin in 383, or Geoffrey Chaucer, the famous English poet, who wrote the “Canterbury Tales” between 1387 and 1400, or La Malinche, a native Indian woman who was the first woman to verbally translate from her native language into Spanish for the colonists in the sixteenth century. Aside from who the father is, the translation industry has gone through a transforming period in 2020, and the first quarter of 2021.
The translation industry has learned to use new apps, new platforms, and new technology. However, aside from the current and the promising future status of the industry, one element is still predominant ─ not resources, not technology, or profit and loss. The skills of a professional translator. The human factor is still the king!
What Are the Skills of Professional Translators?
The common wisdom is that mastering two languages doesn’t necessarily make you a good translator. Also, according to what many translation experts, translation is way more than just replacing words from one language to another. So, what are the must-have skills that a translator should master? Let’s dive into these skills one by one.
First – Native Translators are the Best
This is requirement A and Z! A professional translator is the one who translates from whatever language into her or his native language. This is logical because he or she will definitely an extensive vocabulary combined with a lot of knowledge about his mother tongue.
Second ─ Thorough Knowledge of the Language
To be a good translator form one language to another, you need to gain comprehensive knowledge of both languages. There’re various ways to achieve this, including taking courses, or doing a degree in the target language, reading in many subjects, and continuously follow up the source language media.
Third ─ Research, Research, and Research!
If not an avid researcher, forget it. A translator often spends a lot of his time researching everything ─ from vocabulary to meanings, terminology, background information and many other things. The more efficiently he or she researches, the better. That’s why translators should learn the advanced research tricks and tools on search engines. Also, they should always take part in translator forums and webinars, in addition, to continuously bookmarking their most useful reference sources
Fourth ─ Industry Expertise
Gone are the old days of the Jack-of-all-trades translators who work on all projects from medical to legal to technical to commercial to marketing to financial to whatever! It is said that a good translator should have specialist knowledge of the terminology related to a specific industry, sector, or niche.
So, is this true? Is it really good for a translator to specialize in a specific translation field?
The advantages of Being A Specialized Translator
Translation, no doubt, is more than simply replacing one word for another word. Translation is first and foremost about how to understand the subject matter thoroughly before conveying the message from one language, and culture, to another. So, what do translators reap from specializing? What are the advantages or benefits? Here they are:
- Productivity. Specialized translators usually deliver high-quality translations faster than generalist translators.
- Broader Knowledge horizons. Each specialized project enriches the translator’s lexical knowledge and adds to his experience.
- Boosting efficiency. Since a specialized translator is often aware of the vocabulary of the subject they’re specialized in, this saves a lot of time and effort, and, thus, makes him more efficient.
- Higher quality: Of course, handling a subject matter in which you are specialized ends in much better quality on all levels.
- More money. Specialized translators usually set higher word rates and thus make more money.
Now, it’s important to ask about the major fields of translation.
The main Translation Specialisms
Yes, it takes time and effort Choosing a translation specialism is tough. First, the translator has to choose a field in which he is interested. Then he or she will have to read a lot in this area. And now, let’s have a quick look at the major translation specializations.
First – Finance & Business Translation
Companies all over the world are now seeking to promote their products and services worldwide in multiple languages, and thus they’re always in need of translators to help them achieve their business goals through conveying their marketing messaging to overseas audiences. Translation services in this area involve several sub-areas ─ such as corporate communication, marketing, and sales. Financial translation services handle the documentation related to the stock exchange, finance, and banking. They include such documents as financial agreements, financial statements, annual reports, etc.
Second ─ Legal Translation
It’s one of the specializations that require the greatest level of accuracy and translators in this area are usually paid generously by businesses and organizations. The most money-generating languages pairs include such languages as Spanish, English, Russian, German, Chinese, and Korean.
Judicial translation and juridical translation are sub-divisions of legal translation. Judicial translations are carried out in courts, handling such documents as minutes of interrogation sessions, judgments, expert reports, minutes of proceedings, and so forth. Juridical translation, on the other hand, deals with a variety of documents, such as bail assurance, conventions, laws, partnership contracts, sales, and purchase conditions, labor contracts, license, and commercial agreements, insurance policies, and so on.
Third ─ Medical Translation
It’s a translation domain with no room for mistakes, a little room for word interpretation as it’s closely related to the lives and wellbeing of people. Over and about a full command of translation skills, a medical translator should be well versed in medical terminology and medical regulations. Also, he often signs non-disclosure agreements before working with pharma businesses and healthcare providers, among others.
What About LatinoBridge?
Finally, we might have a look at the major languages linguists translate from and into at LatinoBridge and the various industries that the company targets?
At LatinoBridge, we provide premium translation services from into Spanish and Brazilian thus bringing global businesses to Latin America and the other way round.
We pride ourselves on serving a broad range of industries, including Energy, Engineering, Automotive, Legal, Medical & Healthcare, Technology, Telecom, Consumer Electronics, Education & eLearning, Finance, Marketing, and many more.
Our people are the secret of our power. For more info about careers in LatinoBridge, click here: https://latinobridge.com/careers/
