ABOUT TRANSLATING
What is required for a good translation?
Someone who speaks the foreign language in question and perhaps a good dictionary.
The above statement is, of course, partly true, but an ordinary person—even someone who has lived for many years in the country where the language is spoken—cannot be expected to produce professional translations of high-quality.
Why not?
Translation not only requires knowledge of the language, but also background knowledge, translation skills, experience, and a highly intelligent approach. A good translator does not simply translate words into the target language—anybody could do that, with the help of a dictionary or a dictionary program. Instead, he/she must transmit the idea or message of the text, and do so in accordance with the style of the original. Thus, it is the task and responsibility of the translator to select the appropriate expressions and linguistic structures for the given context. At the same time, he/she must also demonstrate an awareness of the formal requirements of the target language. An experienced, committed translator will know what literature to use, and will consult with colleagues, experts in the field or even the client if this becomes necessary.
Could you change a light bulb?
Of course! – you would say. Ok then, could you also change the old electrical wiring in my house? No? Oh, I see, you are not an electrician!
But then why do so many people expect anyone who speaks a foreing language to be able to translate business letters or contracts?
If you want a house built, you go to a builder; for a haircut, you go to a hairdresser; and to learn a foreign language, you go to a language teacher. It’s quite obvious, isn’t it? Similarly, it’s not worth trying to save money by having important contracts or business correspondence translated by non-professionals—perhaps by a relative who’s spent some time abroad or by a child who’s learning the language at school.
Translating is a profession, and if you want your business partners to take you seriously and regard you as a reliable and promising businessperson, then be prudent when choosing your translator or interpreter. After months of thorough and careful preparations, you don’t want a customer to back out of a deal because of some silly linguistic error or unintelligible sentence in your correspondence or documents, or because a poorly trained or unprepared interpreter fails to transmit the subtleties and nuances of what you have to say into the target language.
Consider this: translators are skilled and experienced professionals, whose work should not be undervalued. They need time in order to do a good job—and this has its price. A text for translation, such as a scientific paper, may be no more than a few pages in length, but the translator may require a whole day to translate it.
Our agency works with translators trained at Hungarian or foreign universities and native proofreaders. They all have many years of experience and always seek to be accurate in the transmission of information, to establish high standards of style, and to adhere to translation deadlines.
It is not sufficient for a translation to be free of grammatical errors. This is the minimum requirement to be met by any translator. If a translated text sounds odd or is difficult to understand, or if it seems like “translationese”, the message of the original text might be seriously compromised and indeed, the final product will be a distortion rather than a translation. You can appreciate the financial damage or annoyance caused by such texts. For this reason, it does pay to be prudent in selecting the translation agency you work with — one that accepts contractual liability for the quality of its translations.
