[...] Translators just didn't get recognition, they didn't expect to make much of a living, just get by. Very few people were actually trained as translators, but most had a solid college education and a solid knowledge of languages, at least their own language. I had a friend who fell exactly into that category and my circle of friends expanded to include other translators. I found them to be much more interesting as people, and discovered that we often had similar life experiences. I never had trouble making friends, but I always felt "different" and I'm sure they felt it too. When my friend retired, she recommended me as her replacement. I now entered the realm of Reinsurance, of which I knew nothing. I was also the only translator there, and didn't have much to fall back on. However, it was another notch up....
On my new job, I started looking through the files, asking questions and got the company to enroll me in Insurance courses. The College of Insurance was across the street, and I consulted fire codes, insurance policies and fire extinguisher catalogs in their library. I was learning what I had never had the luxury of being able to do before: research. The first time I had to translate a proposal for purposes of insurance of a nuclear plant, I got a call from the head man in that department, congratulating me on the job I had done. "Compares favorably with what we are used to," he said. What an upper! What happened was that I consulted a document in the files similar to the one I was tackling for guidance, but when I saw that my predecessor had used the word "nucleus" instead of "core", I realized that the files were useless to me. I went across the street to the library and looked up "nuclear plants." I immediately found all the terminology I needed.
It takes a great deal more than that to be a good translator these days, of course. [...] | [...] Prevajalci preprosto niso dobili priznanja, niso pričakovali, da bodo kaj dosti zaslužili, le da preživijo. Zelo malo ljudi je bilo dejansko usposobljenih za prevajalce, vendar je večina imela solidno visokošolsko izobrazbo in dobro znanje jezikov, vsaj svojega jezika. Imela sem prijatelja, ki je spadal točno v to kategorijo in moj krog prijateljev se je razširil še na druge prevajalce. Zdelo se mi je, da so veliko bolj zanimivi kot ljudje in sem ugotovila, da pogosto imamo podobne življenjske izkušnje. Nikoli nisem imela težav pri sklepanju prijateljstev, vendar sem se vedno počutila "drugačne" in prepričana sem, da so tudi oni to čutili. Ko se je prijateljica upokojila, me je priporočila kot svojo zamenjavo. Zdaj sem vstopila v področje pozavarovanja, o katerem nisem vedela ničesar. Tam sem bila tudi edina prevajalka in se nisem imela na kaj zanašati. Vendar je to bila še ena stopnja višje.... V novi službi sem začela brskati po datotekah, zastavljati vprašanja in sem pridobila podjetje, da me je vpisalo na tečaje zavarovalništva. Fakulteta za zavarovalništvo je bila čez cesto in v njihovi knjižnici sem pregledala požarne predpise, zavarovalne police in kataloge gasilnih aparatov. Učila sem se tistega, česar prej nikoli nisem imela razkošja, da bi lahko naredila: raziskovanja. Ko sem morala prvič prevesti predlog za zavarovanje jedrske elektrarne, me je poklical vodja tega oddelka in mi čestital za opravljeno delo. "V primerjavi s tistim, česar smo vajeni, je ugodno," je dejal. Kakšen dvig samozavesti! Zgodilo se je, da sem kot vodilo konzultirala dokument v datotekah, ki je bil podoben tistemu, ki sem se ga lotila, a ko sem videla, da je moj predhodnik uporabil besedo "nukleus" namesto "jedro", sem ugotovila, da so datoteke zame neuporabne. Šla sem čez cesto v knjižnico in poiskala "jedrske elektrarne". Takoj sem našla vso terminologijo, ki sem jo potrebovala. Da bi bil dober prevajalec, je danes seveda potrebno veliko več kot to. [...] |