Tuesday, November 26, 2019

SPECIALIST TRANSLATIONS - WHAT, HOW AND WHY?

These sentences are often heard; However, they do not come true. Numerous myths about "translation" or "specialist translators" are still circulating all over the world. We are often unaware of how often we encounter translations in everyday life or in business life and how much we depend on their accuracy. It is precisely for this reason that it is important to provide information and to present the topic of "specialist translation" in its entirety.
So first of all, the myths are cleared up:
Myth 1: "Any bilingual person can be a translator."
If every bilingual person were a translator, our understanding would be much more complicated. Because translating does not simply mean "look up and write down in the dictionary". Translators (and especially specialist translators) in a translation agency are good, even very well trained. Not only in their respective languages, such as English, French, Spanish or Italian, but also in the fields of translation, linguistics and one or more disciplines.
This is precisely what makes the big difference between a semi-professional, mostly literal translation and a professional translation of a translation agency.
Myth 2: "Specialist translators and interpreters do exactly the same thing."
The fact that specialist translators and interpreters do exactly the same thing is nonsense, in good German. Translators deal with written language, while interpreters work with spoken language. These two disciplines are so complex that they require two independent, independent training courses and therefore cannot be compared or even used interchangeably.
Myth 3: "Translations can also be done easily with Google Translate".
As in many other areas, the field of specialist translations has changed as a result of the development of the Internet. Therefore, it is not surprising that translations can now be carried out automatically and automatically. Google Translate, Bing, Yahoo: Automatic translations are available from many providers.
Unlike a specialist translator, however, the machine cannot rely on phrases, linguistic peculiarities or cultural know-how, which is why in most cases the content is only incompletely reproduced and, in the worst case, the actual message is changed.

 SMALL HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION INDUSTRY

Translations have been around for over 2000 years. We have known this since the Egyptians carved their hieroglyphics in stone and archaeologists found this document in the 19th century. It is therefore not surprising that the translation industry has undergone a strong development over time – from the Egyptians to famous translators such as Luther to modern times.
Numerous new work areas have developed and offer enormous potential for specialist translations. In addition, the technical development has resulted in numerous new media, which contain texts and thus also translations and can be used for advertising purposes or for the umprising. In short, the demand for translations (and especially for specialist translations) has increased significantly over the years.
English, Spanish and other specialist translations are more in demand and more important than ever. And for a good reason. A professional specialist translator from a translation agency guarantees not only error-free, but also in-depth know-how in a specific work area. Technical terms and complicated foreign words can be correctly applied and expressed by the translator through their own background knowledge.
Each type of company can therefore have texts translated for its own specific field by a specialist translator specially trained for this field. This guarantees that messages arrive correctly at the audience, not only in their mother tongue, such as German, but also in other languages, such as English, French or Italian, and do not send a misleading message.
After all, who would like to become a mockery of customers? Famous phrases such as "With you is not good to eat cherries.", translated using a free Internet tool, would not only be embarrassing, but would also result in a loss of recognition and professionalism of the company.