By Célia Santerre, translator at Right Ink
When it comes to the science of translation, translators need be familiar with foreign languages and their mother tongue of course, as well as having some fairly technical skills, associated with the tools that we need to use. But they also need curiosity and rigour, which is when translation becomes more like an art.
All translators are different, bringing their own baggage and personality to their work, and in the same way, different texts have different qualities as well. A good translation agency needs to be able to find the right member of its team for the job, to make sure a client’s specific requirements are fulfilled.
Let’s take a couple of examples. First of all, there are technical documents, like clinical trials and safety instructions. For this kind of work, it is vital that the translator produces a text that is as clear as possible. It’s not about promoting a product or embellishing the text to make it sound good: the primary goal is to convey as much clarity as possible, following the instructions and making sure the terminology is totally consistent and the wording used is the same as in similar texts that have been translated in the past. Rigour is essential!
Then there are marketing translations. If a clothing brand wants to publish a press release about its new collection, it expects the text to flow, be a pleasure to read, encourage the end clients to want to find out what’s new, and ultimately, buy the company’s products. With a text like this, the translator can move away from a literal, word-for-word rendering, and instead unleash his or her imagination and style, to end up with a perfectly fluent translation. Creative translators certainly have a lot to offer!
Whatever documents you need to translate, you can trust the Right Ink team: we’ve got all the translator profiles you can think of to meet your needs.