The Skills That Differentiate the World’s Best Translators

区分世界上最好的翻译的技巧

2021-02-28 03:50 Lingua Greca

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You can find a translator pretty much anywhere. Go to any freelancer portal. Visit any translator association directory. Do a Google search. Translators aren’t hard to find. Outstanding translators, on the other hand, are like gold dust. Professional translators spend a lot of time building up the muscles of their translation core. They dutifully study various terminology domains, learn languages inside and out, and master an array of translation tools. These are the basic requirements for entry into the profession. But once you’ve done those things, what is it that truly separates the top 1% of translators from the rest of the pack? I have worked as a professional freelance translator, on the language service provider (LSP) side, and currently serve as a buyer that procures many millions of words of translation services for a large public company. Here are the skills that I think matter most for working translators today. 1. Curiosity The best translators don’t just translate words. They convey meaning. They aim to connect the voice of the original author in a way that sounds authentic and engaging. They are focused on getting to the heart of what the words mean, to truly facilitate communication. As such, they will probably need to ask a lot of questions. They’ll want to understand the goal of the text, what other parts of the experience it connects to, if any, and where it will be published, along with the profile of the audience. Having an inquisitive nature is an important part of being a great translator. Usually, translators can answer many questions on their own by doing some basic research, but if not, asking questions is incredibly important. It’s not always necessarily a good sign when a translator asks a lot of questions. For example, it’s not great if they ask about things that were already answered in the instructions provided. But it’s a great sign when they ask purposeful and relevant questions that demonstrate their commitment to really understanding the goal of the communication and getting the true meaning across. It shows they are thinking critically about the text and its purpose before they translate. Needless to say, this is something machines can’t do, but it’s also something that the best translators naturally think to do. 2. Flexibility My favorite translators demonstrate adaptability and creativity. They don’t just sit within the confines of the words they were given, but think outside of the box. One of my favorite ever translation tests was when a translator took the English phase “goes together like peanut butter and jelly” in a blog post and translated it into “goes together like pain au chocolat” for the French audience. They were not afraid to convey the meaning as opposed to merely translating the words. Just leaving the words alone and converting them into French would have actually destroyed the meaning for the target audience. The best translators also aren’t afraid to delete things. True, you’re taught in translation that “omissions” are a big no-no. But that doesn’t hold true for every scenario. There are times when if you translate something, it simply won’t make sense or have any relevance for the target audience. When this happens, I love it when the translators highlight that given sentence or section and suggest we simply delete it if it does not make sense. Doing so also helps the source authors learn that perhaps their original content contained some fluff, or had writing that could be improved. Likewise, adding explanatory text is often necessary to bridge cultural differences for the target audience. This too is a common trait that the best translators demonstrate, at least where marketing content is concerned. 3. Hustle Believe it or not, a translator’s ability to deliver high-quality work quickly is hugely valuable, something that many buyers would pay a premium for, because it can save them huge amounts of time. Time is money! And depending on the industry you’re in, having translations ready earlier can be worth the value of the translation many times over! However, this is only the case if the translations are good. They can’t be done carelessly, or they’ll be worthless altogether, especially for marketing content. A sense of urgency goes a long way for your customers. This isn’t just a phenomenon of the digital age. Speed and hustle have been important for decades! When I was a freelance translator, we were still in the days when printed page proofs were sent via courier service to me by a bilingual textbook publishing company in Boston. They arrived on my doorstep in the evening, often with the pages still warm from the printer. I used to work through the night to get them couriered back to my publishing clients the next morning. To me, the hand-off happened when the pages reached me, and I was the next part of this important chain. The client depended on me! This gesture early on in my career helped me stand out from others who might have only started working on them the next day. The editors working on my books got their drafts handed in faster, and their books went to press earlier. Working with someone who had a sense of urgency gave them a clear advantage over working with other translators. I began to have steady direct and recurring customers as a result. I’m not suggesting that every translator needs to work a crazy schedule or sacrifice work/life balance. However, a client working toward their own deadlines often needs their translators to adopt a similar appreciation for the speed at which they need to work. And now that I’m in the buyer’s seat, it’s not just me who appreciates a sense of urgency and hustle from translators. Our internal stakeholders are the ones who benefit the most from this. Hustle is often a big part of what a buyer perceives as “a great service.” And in the always-on, instant gratification age, where continuous delivery rules in software, a translator who is willing and ready to grab the baton and keep running at the same pace as the buyer is a highly prized asset to any team. 4. Humility Most translators take a lot of pride in their work, and consider themselves experts in at least one language combination. But with language, and especially with creative translations, there is often no “wrong” answer or output. Subjectivity rules. The solutions twenty translators might come up with for the same sentence are as varied as the personalities of the humans themselves. So, when buyers ask translators to make changes, it’s surprising how frequently they are met with defensiveness, a lack of willingness to implement feedback, and lengthy debates about trivialities. The translator may believe they are defending their credibility, but in fact, they are talking themselves out of future jobs with the customer. No customer wants to waste time debating linguistic minutiae. While the translator might think they are “educating” the customer, the customer simply wants the changes made and to move on. I have witnessed countless disputes in which the translator refused to change a term to what the client wanted, or had the audacity to disagree with the client’s style guide, or the clients’ own employees. This makes total sense when the mistake would actually have major consequences, or lead to an error that could impact someone’s health or life. (I’ve witnessed situations like that as well, especially with medical and legal translation.) However, the “my way or the highway” attitude among translators is, well, a bit shocking. Especially when the requests for changes have no major consequences other than for the client to simply have their subjective (but often important) preferences met. Most other professionals, such as graphic designers, expect clients to ask for tweaks or changes in order to fit a certain style. But often, translators stand their ground almost as if it’s a moral or ethical matter. They will lean on dictionaries to defend themselves, when in reality, sometimes the customer just has a preferred way of saying something in a language. That’s their brand, and their choice, end of story. To say it another way… the best translators are just, well, nice people who don’t have a chip on their shoulder. They don’t assume they are always right, because they’re not! The Skills That Differentiate Translators Are People Skills In summary, the skills that matter most for professional translators are not linguistic skills. They are people skills. Linguistic skills are the basic entry point, and taken as a given, much like “translation quality” is in general. Yet, I don’t believe these skills are much of a focus for training people who enter the profession. Beyond linguistic quality, buyers want and expect an excellent experience working with translators, because people prefer working with people they like and can get along with. Translators too often think that the quality of their work will speak for itself. Just because you take pride in it, does not mean everyone else can. Translation is an art. But a high-quality work of art might look like a piece of junk to someone who has no appreciation for that type of art. Most buyers will remember the experience they had, not just what they bought. And if they had a bad experience, they will remember the delay waiting at the cash register, or the snippy comment, even more than they will remember what was in the bag. This is even more true in the case of translation, where it’s hard to even quantify the value of what you are buying. What you are buying often appears to be “just words,” which are hard to put a value on when anyone can generate them for free. For this reason, the buyer experience matters even more for translation than for many products and services a person can buy. People skills, not language skills, are what make some translators rise to the top in the eyes of the customer. Tweet WhatsApp Email Print
在任何地方,你都可能找到一个译者。去任何自由职业者门户。访问任何译者关联目录。或者进行谷歌搜索。找到译者并不难。但是,优秀的译者就像金子一样可遇而不可求。 专业译者会花费大量的时间来建立他们翻译核心的内容。他们会尽职尽责地学习各种术语,学习输入和输出,并且也会掌握一系列的翻译工具。但是,一旦你已经做过了这些事情,那么真正百里挑一的译者有什么条件呢? 我曾在语言服务供应商(LSP)做过专业的自由翻译,目前是一家大型上市公司的采购员,为其采购数百万字的翻译服务。以下是我认为对当今的翻译工作者最重要的技能。 1.好奇心 最优秀的译者并不仅仅是翻译词语。他们传递意义。他们力求以一种听起来真切和引人入胜的方式,从而与原作的声音相通。他们专注于探寻词语表达的灵魂,从而真正地促进交流。 同样地,译者也会需要问很多的问题。他们将会去理解文本的目标,以及与文本相关的其他的部分(如果有的话)。比如,它会在哪里出版,以及读者的个人资料。洞察的天性也是成为一名优秀译者的重要部分。通常来说,译者可以通过做一些基础的研究来自己解决一些问题,如果以上还是不能解决问题的话,提问就非常重要了。 当一个译者问了很多问题时,这并不一定是个好兆头。例如,如果他们询问已经在提供的说明中回答过的事情,那就不太好了。但是,如果译者提问的问题是意味深长的,切题的,并且这些问题能够表明译者决心真正地理解交流的目标,传达准确的意义,那么这样的问题就是很好的提问。它表现了在翻译之前,译者对于文本和它的目的进行了批判性的思考。更不要说,这样的过程是机器无法做到的,却是优秀的译者出于本能会思考去做的事情。 2.灵活性 我最喜爱的译者阐释了适应能力和创造力这两件事情。他们不会安于文字给予他们的禁锢,他们会跳出框框去思考问题。至今为止,我最爱的一个翻译测试来自于一个译者,她在她的博客brain pickings里分享了一条英语短语 “goes together like peanut butter and jelly”(铁哥们)一样并且把它翻译为法语的表达 “goes together like pain au chocolat ”(就像是法国人的丹麦巧克力面包一样)。他们并不害怕表达意思,相反他们害怕的是只是翻译文字。如果只是把文字看作是独立的来译,然后直接把它们转译为对应的法语,就会破坏目标读者对其的理解。 最优秀的译者不会害怕删除文字。当然,在翻译中,你学到的就是“省略”是绝对不可以的。但是这样的说法并不适用于每一种情况。会有一些时候,如果你在翻译一些东西,译文解释不通或是与目标读者的文化背景毫不相关。当这种情况发生时,我很赞同译者强调的一点,即如果译文说不清楚,给出的句子和章节,建议我们将其删除。这样做也能够帮助源语言作者意识到他们的原作内容存在一些问题,或者说明了写作还需要进一步提高。 同样地,增加解释性文本往往是必要的,以弥合目标受众的文化差异。这也是最好的译者所展示的一个共同特点,至少在市场营销内容方面是如此。 3.行动力 不管你信不信,译者快速交付优质译文的能力是非常有价值的,这也是一种能力,买方愿意为其支付额外金额,因为它帮助买方节省了大量的时间。时间就是金钱!这取决与你所在的行业领域,让翻译更早地呈现会让翻译的价值翻好多倍!然而,这种情况只有在翻译质量好的情况下才会有。不能够潦草地做事,否则它们将会是一文不值的,尤其是对于市场营销的内容来说。 紧迫感对你的顾客来说是非常关键的。这不仅仅是数字时代的现象。几十年来,速度和行动力都是非常重要的。在我还是一个自由职业译者的时候,我们那个时候,印刷版文件都是通过波士顿双语出版公司的快递服务送到我手上的。在夜晚,我在家门口收到文件,通常这些打印出来的文件仍然还热着呢。为了让文件可以在第二天就交到我的出版客户手中,我通常彻夜工作。 对于我来说,一旦我拿到了文件,这种交付就开始了,并且我也是这个重要链条的下一环。客户依赖我!在我职业生涯中,这样的态度帮助我变得比那些在第二天开始工作的译者们更加突出和优秀。编辑我的书的工作人员也可以更快交稿,他们的书也能更早地出版。和那些有紧迫感的人们一起合作的话,显然比和其他译者一起工作更有优势结果,我开始有了稳定的直接的和经常性的客户。 我并不是说每个翻译都需要安排一个疯狂的日程表,或者牺牲工作/生活的平衡。然而,一个客户在自己的最后期限前工作,通常需要他们的翻译人员对他们需要的工作速度采取类似的评价。 现在我坐上了买家的位子,不仅仅是我欣赏翻译们的紧迫感和急迫感。我们的内部利益相关者是从中受益最多的人。客户通常认为“优质服务”的一个重要组成部分是努力工作。在这个永远持续,即时满足的时代,软件上的持续交付的原则,一个愿意并准备好抓住接力棒,保持与客户同步的翻译人员对于任何团队来说都是非常宝贵的资产。 4.谦逊 大多数翻译人员都对自己的工作感到自豪,认为自己至少在一种语言组合方面是专家。但是对于语言,尤其是创造性的翻译,往往没有“错误”的答案或输出。主体性规则。二十个翻译者对同一句话可能提出的解决办法,就像人类本身的个性一样,千差万别。 因此,当买家要求翻译人员做出修改时,令人惊讶的是,他们会频繁地受到防卫,很少能得到实质性的反馈,还会经历译者对于琐事冗长的辩护。翻译可能认为他们是在维护自己的信誉,但是,事实上,他们正在放弃与客户未来的工作。没有一个客户想要把时间浪费在争论那些不重要的细节上。当译者可能会认为他们正在“教育”客户的时候,客户仅仅只是想要达成自己的更改并接着往下走 我已经目睹了数不清的纠纷,在种种争论中,译者拒绝将一个术语改为客户所要求的,或是敢于反对客户指导的方式和客户的员工,这是完全合理的,因为有时候错误将会导致严重的后果或者会导致某种错误,直接影响到某些人的健康和生命。(我已经目睹了好多诸如此类的情况,尤其是在医药和法律发面的翻译。) 然而,一些译者“要么按我的方式来,要么你走人”的态度确实有一些糟糕了。尤其是一些想要做出改变的要求,除了客户的一些主观性要求(通常是很重要的),并不会有什么严重的后果。大多数的专业人士,例如绘图设计师,会期待客户进行调整或是改变,以适应某种风格。但是,译者通常会保持自己的立场,就像这是一件关乎道德或是伦理的事情。事实上,译者会依靠字典来为自己辩护,当客户只是在一种语言上有偏爱的表达方式时。这是他们的方式,他们的选择,他们的结局。 换一种方式说的话,优秀的译者是不会总是感到愤愤不平的。他们不会断定他们总是正确的,因为他们从来都不会这样。 区分译者的技能是人际交往技能 总之,对专业翻译来说,最重要的技能不是语言技能。它们是人与人之间的技能。语言技能是翻译的基本切入点,并作为一个给定的,就像“翻译质量”是一般意义上的一样。然而,我认为这些技能并不是培训入职人员的重点。 除了语言素质外,买家希望并期待与翻译一起工作的绝佳体验,因为人们更喜欢与他们喜欢的,能够相处的人一起工作。译者通常会认为他们作品的质量就是他们的门面。仅仅因为你感到自豪,并不意味着其他人都可以。翻译是一门艺术。但是,一件高质量的艺术作品对于那些不欣赏这类艺术的人来说,可能看起来就像是一件垃圾。 大多数买家会记住他们曾经的经历,而不仅仅是他们买了什么。如果他们有过不好的经历,他们会记得在收银台等候时的耽搁,或者那些尖刻的评论,甚至比他们记得包里装的东西还要多。这在翻译方面更是如此,因为你甚至很难量化你所购买的东西的价值。你买的东西往往看起来只是“文字”,当任何人都可以免费生成这些文字时,很难给出价值。 因此,购买者的体验对翻译的影响甚至比对一个人可以购买的许多产品和服务的影响更大。能够让译者成为客户眼中的number one的是人文技巧,而非语言的技巧。 推文 WhatsApp 电子邮件 打印

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

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