[...] 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. [...] | [...] Oversættere fik bare ikke anerkendelse, de forventede sig ikke meget af livet, kun at klare sig. Meget få mennesker blev faktisk uddannet til oversættere, men de fleste havde en solid universitetsuddannelse og et solidt kendskab til sprog, i hvert fald deres eget sprog. Jeg havde en ven, der faldt præcis ind i den kategori, og min vennekreds udvidede sig til at omfatte andre oversættere. Jeg syntes, at de var meget mere interessante som mennesker, og jeg opdagede, at vi ofte havde mange af de samme livserfaringer. Jeg har aldrig haft problemer med at få venner, men jeg har altid følt mig "anderledes", og jeg er sikker på, at de havde det ligesådan. Da min veninde gik på pension, anbefalede hun mig som sin afløser. Jeg kom nu ind i genforsikringsverdenen, som jeg intet vidste om. Jeg var også den eneste oversætter der, og jeg havde ikke meget at falde tilbage på. Det var dog endnu et trin op … På mit nye job begyndte jeg at kigge filerne igennem, stille spørgsmål og fik virksomheden til at tilmelde mig forsikringskurser. College of Insurance var på den anden side af gaden, og jeg konsulterede brandkoder, forsikringer og kataloger med brandslukkere i deres bibliotek. Jeg lærte, hvad jeg aldrig havde haft den luksus at kunne før: Forskning. Første gang jeg skulle oversætte et forslag med henblik på forsikring af et atomkraftværk, blev jeg ringet op af afdelingschefen, og han lykønskede mig med det arbejde, jeg havde udført. "Det fremstår positivt i sammenligning med det, vi er vant til," sagde han. Sikke en optur! Det, der skete, var, at jeg konsulterede et dokument i filerne svarende til det, jeg havde som vejledning, men da jeg så, at min forgænger havde brugt ordet "nuklear" i stedet for "kerne", indså jeg, at filerne var ubrugelige for mig. Jeg gik tværs over gaden til biblioteket og slog "atomkraftværker" op. Jeg fandt straks den terminologi, jeg havde brug for. Det kræver selvfølgelig meget mere end det at være en god oversætter nu om stunder. [...] |