![]() I don’t sit in front of my computer every day shaking like a leaf under the burden of a soul-crushing responsibility and the effort of superhuman concentration, and you shouldn’t either. I don’t say this out of the desire to lecture and I’m not trying to scare you off I’m merely trying to lay out the truth so you can make an informed decision. But if you’re a “don’t sweat the details” person about your work, if you skimp on research, if close is good enough for you, this is not the right career choice for you. What you’re like in your personal life, who cares (hell, my apartment looks like a nuclear disaster site). Either you need to get through on sheer meticulousness, or you need an all-absorbing passion for the work. Translating requires intense concentration for long periods of time and attention to the very tiniest of details. But if it’s not your personality, it’s got to be your attitude. Now, of course you don’t need an OCD personality to be a translator. The kind of person that makes a good translator is the same kind of person that makes a good librarian: someone who’s a little (or a lot) obsessive-compulsive. Some Types Of People Make Good Translators, Some Don’t.īecause translation carries such a high degree of ethical responsibility and there are so many cracks through which meaning can slip, a translator absolutely must be meticulous. If you’re not prepared to live with the constant moral responsibility that translating entails, you shouldn’t be a translator. Because whether you love her, you hate her, or you find yourself indifferent to her–it’s your job, and she’s not your wife. It’s the same principle as the man assigned to guard another man’s wife: your job and your moral duty are to return her in the same condition you found her to the furthest extent possible. The greatest artist is great because of what you see testified in his work, but the greatest translator is great because of his invisibility. Surrender any impulses of “he should have.” Fight off any thoughts of “making it better” than the original. ![]() The act of translation necessitates an extreme degree of respect. But there are a lot of implications that you need to think about. This may seem almost insultingly obvious. That show you are translating, that novel you are translating, it’s someone else’s work. Everything that you are handling belongs to someone else. To translate means to deal in the borrowed or the stolen, never the owned. And I’m seeing some gaps between the expectation and the reality of translation that I’d like to address. All these experiences have taught about some of the ideas people come into the translation field with–and some of the ideas they don’t. I’ve also corresponded with people seeking translation jobs. I’ve seen remarks about translation in anime reviews, fan forums, and the like. Some have come from aspiring translators, some from current translators, some from anime fans, and some from people who were just interested. Over the last decade I’ve been asked a lot of questions about translating and being a translator. Part 1: Opening Comments – On Translation It’s a somewhat unique set of experiences and it’s let me see a lot of things about the translating processes of myself and others, and about new translators I see entering the field. But in my career I’ve had the opportunity to be on both sides of the process: on one side the translator being evaluated and working under supervision, and on the other side the person evaluating translators–both making recommendations on hires and quality checking other people’s work. In fact, I hope I’ll always be growing as a translator. I write this page not with the assumption that I am The Kickass Translator of All Time, but with the knowledge that I am still growing and that every single thing I say still applies to me and always will. Second, for people interested in what kind of background you need or steps you can take to become a kickass translator, I want to talk a little bit about the skills needed and how to go about getting them. Mostly I want to clear up some misconceptions, but there are also some things I just plain think everyone who’s contemplating or practicing translation needs to hear. There are two main things I want to do on this page: first, I want to say a few things to people considering entering the translation profession. This post originally appeared on The Detail Woman blog and it is republished with permission.
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