Back in February, we spent a “day in the life” of one of our in-house proofreaders (see entry: How in-house proofreaders spend their day at EVS Translations), which went down a storm with our readers. So, we have decided to create a new series: “A day in the life of…”, where our readers can get to know the international staff at EVS Translations and to find out what they do, the challenges of their work and their own background with foreign languages. We hope this series will be fun, but also informative and highlight issues that are important to the translation industry and especially to EVS Translations, including the different processes used in translation and why quality translation is important.
I met up with our in-house German to English translator Rob who told me a little bit about his day…
1. When did you first think you wanted to become a translator?
I have always been fascinated by language. At university I found not only that translation was my most successful discipline in academic terms but also that it is enjoyable and rewarding. The fact that I could get paid to do it made choosing a career path pretty easy. I trained as an automotive and financial translator and have developed a high-level of professional experience in these fields making this my area of expertise.
2. What does your typical day look like?
A typical day involves several thousand words of translation covering a variety of subjects and target audiences, and we need to be fairly adaptable and responsive to changing requirements throughout the day.
3. What do you think are the signs of a quality translation?
A high-quality translation should read like it isn’t a translation at all. In other words, the reader should not be able to tell that the text wasn’t originally written in English (or the relevant target language). Other signs include consistent terminology and the correct use of specialist terms, whether they are specific to a particular industry or to a single client.
4. What’s it like to be part of the EVS Translations in-house translator team?
The ease of communication is great. Being able to talk to other members of the team in person makes it much easier to keep quality high and to ensure consistency. We have expert translators for different fields, and also a very hard-working team of project managers and IT staff. They keep things running smoothly so we can do our job effectively.
5. Our readers have already met our wonderful proofreader, Emma. How important is it to you to include a proofreader in the translation process?
A proofreader is essential in ensuring that our translations are the best they can possibly be. They make sure that the meaning of the original text has been accurately reproduced and that different translators doing different jobs for the same client use identical terminology. I wouldn’t want to work without one!
6. Do you have a favourite field to translate?
I specialise in technical translations, but what I most enjoy are translations that allow for a little more creativity – marketing texts, magazine articles and so forth. What I’m really hoping for is some fascinating work of historical non-fiction, but until then, I’ll continue to enjoy the diverse and occasionally somewhat quirky translations that come in from all manner of clients.
7. Do you have any advice for someone interested in becoming a translator?
Take pride in your work! When a translator has an evident love of language and genuinely cares about doing the best possible job, it’s easy to spot the difference that it makes to his or her translations. Translation can be quite a difficult industry to enter, but that affinity for language should shine through when you submit test translations. Also, the skill of producing fluid translations takes time and hard work to develop – you need to have excellent linguistic skills, but also an excellent understanding of your area of expertise.
8. How about advice for people looking for a translation service provider?
There are many different translation companies out there. I think it’s important to question the details, though: does the company offer proofreading by a separate translator? Does it have in-house IT staff who can respond to any issues straight away? Will the same translator be used for the same clients, so the work is consistent in terminology and style? All of these things have a tremendous effect on quality.
Find out how translation service providers differentiate their services to offer customer value and what separates competitors in the translation market(see entry: Differentiation and Customer Value in the Translation Market).
