The general public’s level awareness of translators is not especially high. Misconceptions about translation as a profession abound – not least because it’s an unregulated profession with no qualification requirements, and also because every polyglot thinks they can translate. Some translation buyer misconceptions I’ve seen in the last 25 years will be compiled and discussed in this article in which I celebrate a quarter-century as a translator, including my attempt at clarifying them.
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“I could’ve translated the document myself if I had time!”
The sentence above is a timeless classic! Typical of management assistants and of everyone who has acquired even the most rudimentary language skills. It’s usually uttered as an attempt at lowering the price – as if the person wanted to say, “Come on, it can’t be that expensive”. But the second part of the sentence (“… if I had time”) itself implies that the person knows very well how much time a good translation costs. And that’s exactly the point: things that you’re not qualified to do or that you can’t do with the needed quality should be better left to a professional.
“Please translate it word for word!”
Another typical sentence spoken by people who don’t understand a simple truth: a translator doesn’t translate words, translating is about conveying concepts and ideas – i.e. the meaning of a statement. A good translator understands what’s written between the lines (and therefore knows what the author meant to write, but didn’t) as well as for who the text was written (and therefore knows how to find the appropriate language style and the right words in the target language). As anyone can see, this is so much more than “translating word for word”!
“How do you say XYZ in Greek?”
No, translators are not dictionaries. In addition, specialised translators shouldn’t be expected to know everything about their speciality domain. You don’t expect a specialised lawyer to have learned by heart all existing laws. So why should you expect a translator to know all the words in a dictionary? On the other hand, what a specialised translator, just like a specialised lawyer, can do is find the needed piece of information in industry publications, as well as propose a solution based on accumulated expertise, because both of them have mastered their respective professional skills.
“Do you translate with a golden quill, or what?”
Because the translating profession is intellectually demanding and requires solid knowledge of languages and subject area expertise as well as special core skills, it’s not cheap. A cheap translation will eventually bring serious negative consequences for the client when its quality is revealed to be clearly not high enough to achieve the intended goal. Unfortunately, when something like that happens, it’s usually too late, and the client will have to buy a complete new translation – this time from a professional who knows their worth. The best strategy is having it done right the first time and for an adequate price, instead of having to pay double as much to fix a bad job.
“Google Translate does it faster!”
This is absolutely true, because translators are not computers and therefore can’t compete with these in terms of computing power, which usually means speed. Rather, translators are skilled professionals, offering an added value that freebie machine translations simply can’t. Everyone who has had a text translated by an online translation tool knows how bad the translation quality is at closer look. Sentences are mostly free of grammar mistakes, but word choice is awkward and technical terms are wrong or used inconsistently, so that the whole translation can’t be used for professional purposes. A good translation by a professional takes time, so one is better off planning that time in advance rather than being forced to spend even more time later on when the translation needs reworking.
In the next article of this celebratory series, I will share more insights from 25 years of experience in the translating profession.
