[...] 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. [...] | .... Prevodioci jednostavno nisu dobili priznanje, nisu ni očekivali da će puno zaraditi za život već samo tek da se snađu. Samo mali broj ljudi je bio obučen za prevodioce, ali većina je imala solidno fakultetsko obrazovanje i znanje jezika, barem svog maternjeg. Imao sam prijatelja koji je spadao upravo u tu kategoriju i moj krug prijatelja se širio uključujući druge prevodioce. Smatrao sam ih veoma zanimljivim i otkrio sam da smo često imali slična životna iskustva. Nikad nisam imao problema sa sklapanjem prijateljstava ali sam se takođe osećao drugačijim i siguran sam da su i oni to osećali. Kad se moja prijateljica penzionisala preporučila me je kao svoju zamenu. Ušao sam u oblast reosiguranja o kojoj nisam znao ništa. Tamo sam bio jedini prevodilac i nisam imao na šta baš da se oslonim. Kako god, to je bio još jedan korak napred. Na svom novom poslu počeo sam da pregledam dokumenta, postavljajući pitanja i uspeo da dobijem plaćene kurseve osiguranja od kompanije. Visoka škola osiguranja bila je preko puta, konsultovao sam protivpožarne kodove, polise osiguranja i kataloge aparata za gašenje požara u njihovoj biblioteci. Učio sam ono što nikad ranije nisam imao luksuz da radim a to je istraživanje. Prvi put kad je trebalo da prevedem predlog za osiguranje nuklearne elektrane, pozvao me je šef tog odeljenja čestitajući mi na obavljenom poslu. "Dobro u poređenju sa onim na šta smo navikli", rekao je. Kakvo postignuće! Desilo se to da sam konsultovao dokument sličan onom koji sam koristio kao smernicu, ali kad sam video da je moj prethodnik koristio reč "nukleus" umesto "jezgro" , shvatio sam da su fajlovi beskorisni. Otišao sam u biblioteku preko puta i potražio "nuklearne elektrane". Odmah sam pronašao svu neophodnu terminologiju. Naravno, danas je potrebno mnogo više da biste bili prevodilac. |