Speaking is more than just the job description...

If you are reading this, it’s probably for one of two reasons. One, you are a young ambitious college student who has recently chosen to declare your future career as a translator, and you wish to discover more about how to prepare for your profession. The other reason is that you are one of my peers or teacher evaluating my final work for this.

So, you're interested in translating? This career has always been incredibly valued in the realm of communications. This job has one of the fastest growth rates over the next decade thanks to the rise of commonplace global communications, and the pay is based on demand for a specified language and the translator’s skill and speed in translation of the task. Typically, it’s recommended for a translator like yourself to have a degree in the intended language for translation, and a good background in English comprehension and writing. Considerably affordable compared to law school.

However, don’t think that these few things are the only barriers between you and what it takes to be an official translator. What deceivingly looks like a financially successful job with minimal prerequisites hides many more skills necessary to be adequately prepared as a translator. For example, do you understand the change that the translation industry is going through in our day and technology’s role in the current market? How are you going to successfully translate something, if you don’t know a thing about the origins or cultural context of the material? And are you able to work with a myriad of different people and establish honest and heartfelt connections with your employers? Each of these are necessary to grasp if you want to have success in this profession, and beneficial to you in many other professional endeavors.

Experience in the Old Country

You may know your second language very well, but how is a customer supposed to evaluate your skill aside from your word and a college degree? A good way to show proof of your linguistic skills is to study abroad in a different country. Most language degrees require one or an equivalence in order to get the degree, but for translation, there is a much higher emphasis for this. A translator shouldn’t just understand the grammatical rearranging required between two languages, but also its idioms, cultural emphasis, and colloquial speech. These are things that need a hands on experience to truly understand, and that is what interpretation and translation is all about. Although you may be guaranteed a study abroad through degree requirements, the more official study abroads you can put on your resume, the better it will benefit you (and there is no limit to quantity).

Studying a language in its original country has always been used as an efficient indicator of one’s skill. For example, when the Bible was being translated into Latin in the late 4th century. A priest by the name of Jerome wanted a reliable bible created for widespread use through the church, so with consent from the pope, he set out to do that himself. He moved to Jerusalem and spent five years of his life learning Hebrew from the Hebrews themselves. Then, he spent the next fifteen years In the holy land single-handedly translating the Bible into Latin from Greek and Hebrew. Because of his extensive time spent abroad and intricate involvement in the language, Jerome’s completed Vulgate Bible became known as the most accurate translation of the Bible for a thousand years until Martin Luther’s translation in 1536. (de  Gruyter, p. 304-315)

Are you fluent in Binary?

Another thing important to the modern-day translator is, well,  what the modern day holds. You may be deceived, thinking that technology plays a small part of translation’s work. After all, Google Translate can do hardly more than what a traditional dictionary can do. A translator should be practically a hermit, free to work on his own and never have to deal with anything more complicated than an email with the file of the completed work. Right? Wrong. The truth is that technology is your best ally in this work. The role of a translator has always been intertwined with the new advancements of whatever era it takes place in. The world wide web is deeply intertwined with commercial translation efforts. Clients are searched for here, materials are uploaded, even many assignments given are purely digital. Modern translators are not as easily reclusive as perhaps believed to be, and they must be flexible to the twists and changes that advances will bring.

It's thanks to this that your future career exists, as well as
the internet and your favorite fandom of choice.

The digital age isn't the only instance of the need for an adaptation to a more social and outspoken translator. In the times of the Egyptians, ancient Romans and even the middle ages, everything was written by hand. A translator’s job then was long and arduous work, with everything done by yourself and a small group of others, having to copy everything piece by piece down to the letter, without making a single mistake. Ugh! In 1450, all of that changed when the Gutenberg printing press was created. It was a warm welcome of relief. At the same time, it caused a severe shift in the life of translation up until that time. Gone was the monastic lifestyle and endless hours of repetition. Emphasis became more on spreading the materials created by the new, innovative process. Now the internet is placing emphasis on strong communication between the translators and their clients. Thereby, useful skills in marketing or business are highly praised in the current translator world. (Briggs,15-23, 61-73)

Extending the conversation beyond small talk...

The most mandatory, unofficial skill for people pursuing translation though is the unique understanding of literary composition and verbal discourse that a professional must have in their arsenal. When you think of knowing how to write and speak, you typically picture authors and lawyers to do those things. You should make no such mistake with translation. Knowing how to speak is the true hidden art within this career. What is so complicatedly confusing about it is the simple fact that as a translator (and especially as a vocal interpreter) You must understand how to keep something as original as possible. Context, wording, any change whatsoever must be virtually non-existent. When you translate, you must be a perfect representation of their ideas, emotions and credibility. In order to be an effective translator, you need to mimic your client and become a substitute. Failure to do so can lead to an improper result of what is desired and in a worst case scenario, unintentional wars started in foreign relations due to a translator displaying their work in lighting unintended for the message given.

Conclusion

If you truly desire to be a translator, my recommendation is to be involved with as many people as possible in real life (or online) and get a feel for just how valuable the aforementioned skills are. Try to translate a joke you like and keep the context in check, skype with people in different countries and get familiar with how to find and address clients through online means. Enhancing your ability to speak with others and convey the right message is what translation is truly about.

Bibliography

1. Walter de Gruyter, “Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Vol. 15”, Berlin – New York 1986, Web. 6 December 2014

Briggs, Asa and Burke, Peter “A Social History of the Media: from Gutenberg to the Internet” Polity, 3rd ed. 2010, Print