The Art of Professional Translation
The reign of automatic translators has not come yet to replace professional translation...
Professional translation cannot just be summed up by the interchange of an English word for a French one. Sure enough, software programs exist to do this but the reign of automatic translators has not come yet. For the moment, and I believe it will always be the case, they are not good enough. For example, the automatic translation of an article about the wife of the American president, Laura Bush, appeared to be quite a mess. Given that automatic translators are set to recognize but a few collocations, some of them can be problematic. This is why "Laura Bush" had been translated in French to "le buisson de Laura". "Bush" was misinterpreted as a noun (Laura's bush) and not as a family name. The funny part is that when you speak about the bush of a woman, as the translation makes it appear in French, you are talking about something else entirely, with no link to politics whatsoever. Not quite serious enough for a paper...
As long as automatic translators will make those kind of mistakes, human translators will be needed. I defined in the first paragraph what professional translation was not, let's see what translating is really like. The first word that come to mind is craftsman. A translator is a craftsman. Some of you, dear readers, may feel sceptical. Why am I speaking about art and craftsmanship?
Let's take for example the baker making baguettes. From scratch to be precise. He takes his bag of flour, add water and yeast and shape his baguettes. Quite simple, isn't it? However, not every baguette tastes the same... why is that? Well, first of all, a lot of savoir-faire and a touch of salt. A good baker also knows how to use the oven. A tasteful baguette must not spend too much time of the oven. Trust me, it is not that simple to get a perfect crust.
Well, the translator is doing the same with the source text. First step, he writes a draft. As for the baguette, it could be enough, the text is translated. However, it misses the " savoir-faire and salt part " or as we say, proofreading. We check that there are no misunderstandings, nor incoherences. But then again, it is not finished. The translation is not smooth, or fluent. As the crust of the baguette can make our mouths water, the translation has to look perfect and genuine. The reader must not see that the target text is a professional translation. As for the baguette, what would be our reaction if we discover that it was frozen a few hours before we enter the bakery?
Once all these steps have been carried out, such a professional translation will be as crusty as the baguette and achieve what it was made for. Everyone has the same ingredients in hands, but the difference in quality is so vast. Do not underestimate the power that is given to translators, they are the bearers of a know-how that would let the world tasteless without it.
Related Tags: translators, language translation, translation, english translation, french translation, professional translation, french english translation
Armando Riquier as a freelance writer and expert translator collaborates with TeknikaTrad, a company specialized in the translation of technical or industrial documents. Find out how to keep an excellent image in eyes of your foreign customers with quality professional translation of your technical promotional writings and documents, manuals or brochures
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