Professional Translation Services: Common Misconceptions
By: L. Amado 02/02/2010
Professional Translation Services – Common Misconceptions
It is very common for people who are not closely involved in professional translation services to believe that translating from one language to another is a straightforward and simple endeavor. Any bilingual or multi-lingual individual can do it – seem to be the most obvious and most common misconception. The truth is that the process of translating from one language to another as a professional activity is in fact a very serious business that should be approached with the upmost professionalism in order to execute each translation task in a correct and professional manner.
In order to become a professional language translator one needs a lot more than just familiarity with foreign languages. Command of a foreign language does not qualify anyone to undertake translation work any more than being a fast runner makes somebody a good candidate for an Olympic marathon.
To be considered a professional translator requires in-depth understanding and knowledge of at least two languages. Translating is an acquired skill. Professional translators need formal training to be able to write well and understand the subtleties of language use. Language is a cultural construct and if the professional translator fails to appreciate the culture context underneath a given language it is almost impossible to generate an accurate professional translation.
Professional translation is not a simple endeavor. A professional translator is not the proverbial monkey hitting at the keyboard to eventually come up with a properly translated text. Professional translation is a very time-consuming, intricate, complex and arduous professional activity. It requires simultaneously working with two different texts and can be mentally exhausting. A professional translator moves continuously back and forth between two languages and two mental structures. A professional translator needs to first read and process the information in the source language to be able to reflect it accurately in the target language.
Due to the popularity of some free online translation engines, some people tend to believe that it is perfectly possible nowadays to use a computer program to do translations without human intervention. The truth is that there is no machine translation program in existence able to grasp and accurately transfer the subtleties of human languages. Perhaps it is possible to informally use translation engines or computer programs to translate simple, straightforward phrases, but for the time being they are not able to tackle the complexities of more intricate texts.
It is possible to have a friend who is a native speaker of the target language do a quick and dirty informal translation of a small text. But any context that requires information to be accurately and professionally presented requires a professional translation by a professional translator. There simply is no other way. Inaccurate or unusable translations can cause many problems, including the involuntary presentation of inaccurate or misleading information which may have very serious legal consequences. At the very least, amateurish and incorrect translations reflect poorly on a business or organization. Just as you would go to a professional certified medical doctor if you have a serious medical condition, a professional translation services company who hires only professional translators is the way to go for professional translations.
Professional translation services companies such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) are the only option if you are in the market for accurate, high quality professional translations.
http://www.certifieddocumenttransltionservices.com
The Hallmarks of Truly Professional Translators
By: L. Amado 02/01/2010
Professional Translation Services – The Hallmarks of Truly Professional Translators
The professional translation service industry is highly competitive and challenging. In order to succeed, a professional translator needs more than just familiarity in a language pair. Here are some of the characteristics of successful linguistic experts.
The first and most obvious requirement is language skills. It goes without saying that professional translators must be fluent in at least one language besides their native tongue. A passing or informal knowledge is not enough. Language Translation as a professional service requires the systematic study of a foreign and/or second language. A university or equivalent degree on professional translation or related field may have been desirable a few years ago but in the current market is an absolute must.
A professional in the translation field needs to be curious by nature and possess excellent research skills. Contrary to public perception, professional translators are not walking dictionaries. Even generalists cannot be expected to be experts on every field and to be up to date on the latest terminology. Truly professional translators need to be very straightforward about the things they do know and the things they do not know and be able fill the gaps by researching for the appropriate terminology and information. Research can take many forms, from good old-fashioned paper and ink dictionaries and text books to the vast amounts of information on the Internet.
Professional translators need to be proficient with the latest translation tools, such as translation memory management and glossary creation and maintenance tools. At the very least, they should be advanced users of word processor programs, such as MS Word, and other tools such as the Adobe Acrobat suite.
In addition to possessing professional training on languages, a professional translator has to be highly proficient in written communication. Translating is essentially the transmission of meaning from one language to another. The professional translator has to be able to accurately and thoroughly deliver in the target language the same message expressed in the source language. Remember that good writing skills in one language are usually tied to very solid reading habits in the same language.
With globalization and the opening up of markets in different areas of the planet, professional translations are in very high demand from companies dealing with the most varied commercial activities. The more subjects, fields and industries professional translators can cover the more work they can potentially take. This does not mean professional translators have to improvise or pretend they can deal with professional translations covering any area of expertise. It means that professional translators have to stay current with the changes in the professional translation services industry and the needs of potential customers. Additionally, professional translators must be true experts in the fields they claim they can handle. Improvisation is a recipe for catastrophic failure and a sure sign of lack of professionalism.
Last but not least, it is important to always keep in mind that a translator may have graduated with honors from a very prestigious university but those credentials would mean very little without a proper professional attitude. What does it mean to be professional? It means approaching work with discipline and commitment. Professional translators work in the service industry. Professional translation requires the commitment to deliver the highest quality professional translations according to a previously agreed schedule. Professional translators should have very efficient time management skills and take only the amount of work they can professionally handle. Remember that while it is very nice to get paid for doing what we love, if it is a hobby is not professional translation.
Professional translators working for professional translation services companies such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) understand that being a truly professional translator requires much more than bilingualism.
http://www.legaltranslationsolution.com
Future Trends of Professional Translation
Professional Translation Services – Future Trends of Professional Translation
By: L. Amado 01/28/2010
Of the thousands of languages that exist in the world,1 only a few hundred are spoken by at least one million people. The top three languages by the number of native speakers are Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish. Languages are living, breathing organisms, constantly evolving and, as such, some are expanding and are some contracting. Languages are the bread and butter of professional translation services companies and their language translation experts need to stay as up to date as possible of changes and linguistic tendencies.
Most professional translators try to keep up with the changes in the world of languages, but, as with any other field, predicting the direction of change is an impossible task. Besides being the second language by the number of speakers, English in general and the American or US variety in particular has been the de facto lingua franca for almost a century. Will English manage to maintain its relative importance in the future?
It is very hard to tell. As an old professor at school used to put it, a language is as important as the people who speak it. English owes its status to the importance and extension of the British Empire and later to the ascent of the United States, initially as a world power and later as the sole superpower, and as a scientific, industrial and technological powerhouse.
Few experts doubt that, just as it happened to Latin, the day will come when some other language or group of languages will replace English as the de facto lingua franca. The question is when it will happen and what language or languages will take its place. Predictions are very hard to do. I still remember my university colleagues who decided to specialize in Russian during the 80s to suffer a major letdown after the end of the Cold War. Something similar happened with the Japanese language in the early 90s. Many people were convinced that Japan would soon overtake the United States as the world’s only superpower and Japanese would replace or at least seriously challenge the status of English. Now, due to dynamism of the Chinese society, the major contender seems to be Mandarin Chinese. Time will tell.
In any event, besides the natural decline of the relative importance of English-speaking societies, there are at least two major threats to the supremacy of the English language. One of them is linguistic nationalism, or the desire of many countries and regions in the world to defend and preserve their languages. Many of them have in place very strict language laws to promote the national language. The other major challenge is demographics. Birth rates in English speaking countries are generally lower than those in countries or societies with other languages.
We can now safely say that we are almost living a dual existence: the real world and the virtual world, or the world of Internet. It is interesting to note that to a certain extent the virtual world of Internet replicates the real world, as far as language usage is concerned. Most estimates indicate that English is the most widely used language by Internet users, followed by Chinese and Spanish. Not surprisingly, the ten languages with the most speakers cover more than 80% of the total number of internet users. Far from promoting uniformity, globalization, with its revolution on the availability of faster and cheaper transportation and easier communications, has created the opportunity for many languages to thrive. Easier communications and more readily available transportation mean that interaction between different linguistic groups will definitely grow.
Does the above mean that professional translators need to ditch English studies and start taking Mandarin Chinese classes? Not at all. It simply means that professional translators working for professional translation services companies such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) need to stay current with the needs and requirements of the professional translation services market.
1The most extensive catalog of the world’s languages, generally taken to be as authoritative as any, is that of the Ethnologue organization (http://www.ethnologue.com), whose detailed classified list currently includes 6,809 distinct languages.
http://www.document-translation-services.net/
Professional Translations and Context
Professional Translation Services – Professional Translations and Context
By: L. Amado 01/28/2010
Languages are systems to encode and decode information. Human or natural languages are cultural constructs; they are arbitrary and based on convention. They not only reflect but effectively shape the way we see reality. The main function of human language is communication and all human language carries meaning. But since all communication and meaning take place in a given environment, context plays a major role.
At its core, translation – whether amateur or professional translation – involves understanding the meaning of a text in a given language and producing an equivalent text that communicates the same meaning in another language. The language of the text to be translated is known as the source language and the language that it is to be translated into is called the target language.
Before translating, the translator needs to understand the meaning of a text. To do so, the translator has to take context into consideration. Context refers to the total environment in which a word, phrase, or sentence appears. Context is very important because we do not translate words in isolation but rather words bound by their syntactic, situational and cultural contexts. We can safely say that for most practical purposes context determines the meaning of a text.
Take the word “bat” in English. It can be used as a noun or as a verb. In the sentences “He hit the ball with the bat” and “The bat flew into the night”, the term is used as the same part of speech, a noun, but with two completely different meanings. In the first sentence, we are talking about a wooden or metallic club, in the second about a winged, furry, nocturnal mammal. Things get more complicated when we consider “bat” as a verb. For example, “He will bat next” (meaning to strike with a bat) or “She did not bat an eyelid” (informal, to blink).
According to pragmatics, the subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context influences meaning, there are two primary types of context with relevance to meaning: linguistic (sometimes also referred to as verbal) and situational (or social).
Linguistic context refers to all the linguistic factors which influence or shape the meaning of the text. Words or lexical units in a text do not occur in isolation; they interact with other words and the text as a whole. Most words have more than one meaning or category and translators need to understand the way in which they are used. The best way to find the particular meaning of a word is to look into the context.
Situational context refers to the non-linguistic factors which influence or shape the meaning of a text. The same sentence or statement used in different circumstances may have quite different or even opposite meanings. Situational factors may include the body language of the speaker and the hearer in oral communication, and the social, political, moral, cultural and economical environment. Other factors to take into account are conventions, value systems, religious beliefs and even ideology.
Experienced professional and certified translators working for professional translation services companies such as such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) are well aware that they do not translate words in isolation, but rather words with meanings determined by linguistic and situational context and that developing context awareness is one of the most important requisites for a professional translator.
http://www.document-translation.info/
Machine translation vs. Human Translation
Professional Translation Services – Machine vs. Human Translation
By: L. Amado – 01/25/2010
If you are in the market for a translation, there are basically two ways to go. You could either opt for what is known as “machine translation” (sometimes abbreviated as “MT”) or for human translation. Call me a conservative, but I can tell you right away that there is no contest here. Good old-fashioned human translation is simply the only option if you are looking for high quality (correct and accurate) professional translation services.
What does “machine translation” mean? You have probably seen it before. In its more popular versions, it takes the form of online translation engines or computer programs which can be installed on a PC. In either case the result is an automated translation created exclusively with some sort of computer software, with no intervention from a human translator, professional certified or otherwise. Translation software uses algorithms and relies mainly on language usage statistics and word substitution. At its core, automated translation is an attempt to simplify human language and it very seldom, if ever, produces a viable and usable translation.
The main issue with this type of approach is that human languages are very sophisticated and complex constructs. They cannot be reduced to their bare bones without significantly hindering communication. It would take considerable advances in artificial intelligence to develop a software program able to grasp the extremely complex subtleties of human languages. Therefore, for the conceivable future, my favorite Star Trek gadget, the “universal translator”, will remain exclusively in the realm of science fiction.
Professional human translations, on the other hand, are created exclusively by professional certified human translators. They rely on extensive knowledge of both the source and target languages and the ability to naturally recognize and incorporate all the subtleties of human languages, taking into account such considerations as the cultural context, intended market, domain, target audience, etc.
Nowadays, it is common for professional certified human translators to use professional translation tools, such as translation memory management tools, to aid them with their work. They are known as “computer-assisted translation” (sometimes abbreviated as “CAT”) tools.
Just as using a word processor was a huge leap forward in productivity from using a typewriter, the use of computer tools can have a very positive impact on the quality of professional human translations.
“Computer-assisted translation” tools are used by professional human translators in order to have quick access to more accurate glossaries and terminology lists. They also allow professional certified human translators to develop their own glossaries and lexicons according to the requirements of the professional translation process. They are not suitable for all types of professional translation projects, but can have a considerable impact on productivity and consistency, especially in complex professional translation projects with higher word counts.
Truly professional translation services providers such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) offer exclusively human translations done by professional certified human translators, assisted by the latest and most productivity-enhancing tools of the trade.
