Language unites people within one culture but divides people of other cultures. Translation is the main uniting factor that connects one culture to another. Translators are responsible for connecting millions of people in one country to millions of other people in other countries. The following are five methods that they should use to improve their skills at effective translating and communication.
1. Listen to Translation Tapes
Listening is the most difficult skill for translators to master. They have to listen to people talk quickly, use colloquialisms and even speak with accents that are difficult to understand. Most translators participate in Remote Simultaneous Interpretation (RSI) that requires them to translate spoken speech in real time. This means that they are not allowed to review their language books to see if they’re correct. They are encouraged to listen to translation tapes and improve their listening skills as much as possible.
2. Review Examples of Translated Documents
Review examples of translated documents in your language of expertise. Compare the specific words and phrases on the original document to those on the translated document. Look for differences in the results of your translations compared to those of someone else’s. This is one method that translators use to see if they’re making any mistakes.
3. Review Online Language Guides
Even if you’ve been speaking a language for decades, it helps to review your knowledge of this language by reviewing online study guides. There are hundreds of websites that are devoted solely to helping you master a foreign language.
4. Specialize in a Field
Become an expert in a specialized field, such as business, legal, medical or technical language translation. Clients put more trust in specialists who have studied a specific field for years. Generalists are good experts to use too, but they study various fields at the same time and do not show the highest level of expertise in any one.
5. Do Not Focus on Complex Technical Terms
Avoid focusing so much on reading language translation manuals and memorizing a glossary of technical terms. You should know what source language and target language mean, but it’s not necessary to understand the meanings of algorithm, bidirectional, automatic retrieval and other lesser known terms.
In the past, many business owners thought that targeting global markets was not necessary to promote their products and services. Today, the advancement of the Internet has increased the importance of communicating with consumers who buy their products from other countries. More business professionals are seeing the importance of using legal, medical and business conference translation services. So, they need to improve their translation skills if they want to be successful translators.