What are the qualities required to become a professional translator? Becoming a translator, according to many experts, requires one to have at least learned of another language to before one can offer translation services. However, to become a professional translator, it may require more than just the knowledge of the source language as well as the target language. Important Attributes of a Professional Translator According to many experts, other than just learning another language than your own language, a translator must also possess a number of other important attributes, such as learning the relationship of the source language and the target language. Relationships of Languages Other than the simple fact of learning another language, professional translators are required to display a profound understanding of the etymological and idiomatic correlates between the two languages. This is to make translation as accurate as possible. In addition to that, it is also important for translators to possess a finely tuned sense of when to metaphrase ("translate literally") and when to paraphrase. This is to assure true rather than spurious equivalents between the source- and target-language texts. Translators must be able to read, understand and retain somebody else’s ideas, then render them accurately, completely and without exclusion, in a way that conveys the original meaning effectively and without distortion in another language. However, possessing such skills and attributes requires a lot of experience in the profession, which is yet another important factor to become a professional translator. Experience Another important factor of becoming a professional translator is the experience in the profession. This is very important for tasks which require one to have background experience in it, such as Legal translation services and Medical translation services. Experience can be acquired from providing translation services. However, one can also learn of the different tasks that a translator would likely encounter, giving them the necessary idea that they needed to accurately translate their task. Accreditation Although no law requires a professional translator to acquire a license or accreditation for their profession, some tasks may require this, particularly for sensitive tasks such as legal and medical translation services. This is the reason why there are private or parastatal translation organizations which offer accreditation exams to give license to those who passes the exam, which is usually a written one.
Related Articles -
medical translation services, legal translation services,
|