[...] 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 niso bili priznani in niso pričakovali, da bodo zaslužili veliko denarja, ampak da bodo delali zgolj za preživetje. Zelo malo ljudi je bilo dejansko usposobljenih za prevajalce, ampak večina jih je imela visokošolsko izobrazbo ter so imeli dobro znanje jezikov, vsaj svojega jezika. Moja prijateljica je spadala ravno v to kategorijo, v moj krog prijateljic pa so vstopile druge prevajalke, ki so se mi zdele veliko zanimivejše osebe, prav tako pa sem ugotovila, da smo pogosto imele podobne življenjske izkušnje. Nikoli nisem imela težav s sklepanjem prijateljstev, vedno pa sem se počutila »drugačno«. Prepričana sem, da so se tako počutile tudi one. Ko se je prijateljica upokojila, me je priporočila kot svojo zamenjavo. Zdaj sem se podala na področje pozavarovanja, o katerem nisem vedela ničesar. Bila sem edina prevajalka in nisem imela nikogar, na kogar bi se lahko zanesla. Vendar je bil to nov dosežek ... V novi službi sem začela pregledovati spise in postavljati vprašanja, podjetje pa me je vpisalo v tečaje na področju zavarovalništva. Hodila sem v knjižnico visoke šole za zavarovalništvo, ki je bila čez cesto, in prebirala kodekse o požarni varnosti, zavarovalne police in kataloge o gasilnih aparatih. Začela sem spoznavati to, česar si prej nisem mogla privoščiti: raziskovanje. Prvič, ko sem morala prevesti predlog o zavarovanju jedrske elektrarne, me je vodja tega oddelka poklical in mi čestital za opravljeno delo. Rekel je: »To je bolje od tega, kar smo navajeni.« Kakšna spodbuda! Da bi si olajšala delo, sem v spisih našla dokument, ki je bil podoben tistemu, s katerim sem se spopadala. Ko pa sem videla, da je moja predhodnica uporabila besedo »nukleus« namesto »jedro«, sem ugotovila, da so spisi zame neuporabni. Odšla sem v knjižnico čez cesto in poiskala literaturo o »jedrskih elektrarnah«. Takoj sem našla vso potrebno terminologijo. Danes se od dobrega prevajalca seveda zahteva veliko več. [...] |