As a multiracial and multilingual nation thanks in part to its local bilingual education policy, it would be no exaggeration then, to say that the Singaporeans in Singapore are effectively bilingual. Most of us carry out translations in our everyday lives, ranging from the simple translation and interpretation of documents in our mother tongues and dialects to the elderly or to the people around us, to much more difficult translation projects involving professional knowledge and know-how.
It might sound insulting to lump the group of translators mentioned in the former with the latter. However, it is technically not wrong to label both groups as such; the definition of ‘Translator’ in the dictionary points to one who “translates from one language into another”. Effectively speaking, I would be able to call myself a ‘translator’ if I know at least two different languages and am able to express the meaning of a sentence in my mother tongue in English.
Along this line of thought, the question then becomes: What makes a translator a professional translator? Other than the fact that a professional does it for a living and the unskilled ones do not. As mentioned in previous articles, to be outstanding in their field, professional translators would require a specialized field of knowledge. For instance, knowing scientific terms in order to successfully translate a scientific research paper. Yet, it is imperative that we look beyond these tangible ‘hard’ skills and focus on the ‘soft’ skills that should be equally, if not more, valued if one wishes to achieve success in the translation industry.
One such ‘soft skill’ that translation service providers in Singapore would do good to have is in-depth cultural knowledge. This includes the general cultural knowledge (that most people would have, more or less) and culture-specific aspects such as the customs or the words used in certain cultural situations that would significantly affect a piece of text that is being translated. Knowing the cultural nuances and being sensitive to minor differences in wordings between the source and target language cultures would be extremely helpful for those offering translation services in Singapore. However, this might be a bit of a challenge for translators residing in monoracial communities or who are less exposed to the cultures of their source or target language. Even so, this difficulty can be mitigated with the help of the Internet and a bit of research.
In this vein, the importance of having said cultural knowledge ties in with the necessity of having sound research skills as well, if one considers oneself to be a professional in this industry. For many translation companies or service providers in Singapore, simply using Google Translate or other machine translation tools to make up for the lack of professional translators just will not do. These computerized translations are unreliable most of the time due to their literal translations; they are unable to deliver quality work that are culturally specific, or which can only be used for a particular target audience. This is where the importance of knowing how and where to carry out research comes in. Moreover, since it is realistically impossible for any translator to know all the words there is to know in the target and source language, being resourceful enough to know where to go look or how to ask questions to get the right answers are useful skills to have.
Last but not least, having a support group or someone to vet your translations also aids in enhancing the professional nature of your work. For one, peer-reviewing fellow translators’ work would help motivate you to improve your own craft by improving your ‘translation judgement’; i.e.training you to be more aware of errors to avoid during the translation process and basically having better sensitivity to language and intuition when it comes to translating a piece of text.Such a reasoning might also explain why some translation service providers that have in-house proofreaders might be able to achieve a higher level of professionalism and quality in the work they deliver, since there is a feedback loop which constantly pushes the translator to deliver the best they can. However, it is vital that translators do not rely solely on feedback from other people as the main driver for improvement. They should ideally develop the skill of self-critiquing as they gain more and more experience in translating, in order to truly be called a professional in this industry.
In essence, it may seem that what distinguishes a ‘pro’ translator from commonplace ones would be the amount of effort put into one’s work. Professional translators tend to take their work seriously, set high standards for themselves and are constantly challenging themselves as they translate to become even better. Although the amount of knowledge that a translator possesses could possibly give him/her an edge over others and vice-versa, it is ultimately the attitude towards one’s work that sets the professionals apart from the average.
