5. Process and Result of Translation

A turn-of-the-century Russian translator said, “Translation is like a woman, if she is beautiful, she is not faithful; if she is faithful, she is not beautiful.” Ignoring the blatant sexism in the statement, we find one of the kernels of truth in translation. Translators must strike a balance between fidelity to the source text and readability in the target language.

This is no easy trick. Imagine tightrope walking, blindfolded, during a wind storm, with people throwing heavy objects at you and shaking the rope. This represents the balancing act. Now, add to it the often unreasonable deadline which agencies require of translators by having someone behind you on the rope poking you in the seat of your pants with a pitchfork. Sound frustrating? It is. But, if you enjoy a challenge and know how to deal with your languages, it’s not too bad after you’ve been at it for a while.

The trick is to let your clients decide what they want. Since they have to live with the results of your work, let them choose. Patiently explain to them the options they have, how long each might take, and how much each possible version will cost. They’ll decide if they want a literal, if unreadable, translation or if they want a Pulitzer Prize-winning text.

If your client can’t decide, doesn’t know, or won’t tell you, then follow the advice of Buddha and take the middle path. This is easier with some languages and some subject areas than others. Although most people think that technical material is easiest for stylistic considerations, consider this. Academic style varies from nation to nation.

Another potential pitfall with technical translation is that sometimes the client cannot let you see or touch the object in question. If you are translating a computer system manual, then it’s very helpful to see and even work a little with the system. Sometimes that’s not possible, so you are effectively flying blind, trying to land yourself at a destination you’ve never seen. You might have to create terminology for the system, only to find that the client wants something else. You then have to go back and change everything you did.

The most difficult problem is when you encounter something in one language that doesn’t exist in the other. Financial instruments, legal procedures, government and business structures, and so on vary from nation to nation and culture to culture. Although standard glossaries exist for the most commonplace of these, translators are usually dealing with new material and information, so you might be stuck having to christen something on your own, or leave it in the A language and put in a translator’s note, explaining what the term means.

6. Materials for Translation

This is very important. Most of the material people want translated is not of high culture. I have translated materials ranging from articles in medical journals on deep vein thrombosis to bearer’s bonds. The longest translation project I ever did was a 65,000-word book, the shortest, a 50-word diagram.

Basically, translation is seen as a slow and expensive process which most businesses and organizations would rather avoid. They prefer not to go through the hassle of calling some agency, sending them the material, waiting for a bid, bargaining and haggling over price, form and date of delivery and then waiting to see if they get something they can use. Very little of what businesses do is worth translating.

So what they do translate has to be important to someone somewhere. And therefore, it has to be important to you to do it right, especially if you want to get more work from that client.

What might seem stupid to you is worth a lot to someone. I’ve translated lost traveller’s checks surveys, interoffice memos, and advertising copy for car care products. None of this is of high culture. But someone wanted it, so I did my absolute best. Remember, the only way to survive as a translator is to do a good job. You will be judged solely on your work.

Materials to be translated come in all sizes and shapes. Often you have to deal with hand written material. Someone scrawled out some message to someone else and this twenty-five-word chit of paper is now Exhibit A in an international patent infringement lawsuit. You probably won’t know that, but it could happen.

When one person was working in-house as a translator in some office, his supervisor plopped a short letter on his desk and he translated it. He later found out that Prime Minister of his country took this letter to President Reagan during the Summit meeting in 1988. You never know.

When translating, no problem is too small, no term too minor to be ignored. The people who will read your translation don’t know the source language. If they did, they wouldn’t have hired you. It’s easy to see why an article describing a surgical procedure must be done very accurately. Death and life of a patient might depend on your very translation, its accuracy and readability. If you confuse a scalpel with retractor something will happen with a patient for sure. You must be very careful while translating comments on the aircraft design, for the air crash might happen just because of your reluctance to look into vocabulary to find the precise meaning of a specific term. You have to take it all seriously if you want your clients to take you seriously.