The art of translating special-purpose texts, or the qualities of a good professional translator

​​​published on 22 February 2022 | reading time approx. 3 minutes

by Eva-Maria Maciążek

When writing this article, I came across two quotes that inspired me. One is by Spanish translator Miguel Sáenz Sagaseta de Ilúrdoz who said, "If the translator does his job as he should, he is a benefactor of humanity; otherwise he is a veritable public enemy."

This says a lot about the responsibility of the translator and the difference between the possible consequences of a good translation and a bad one. But what characterises a "benefactor"? This is what Günter Grass thinks, "Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes."
    

What is striking here, on the one hand, is that nothing should change. This seems to be logical because the job of a professional translator is, first of all, to render the words of another person in another language. Thus, when translating, the translator should not try to be more creative than the author by making generous additions or rephrasing the text - and ultimately conveying the translator's own version of the source text to the reader. Similarly detrimental is imprecise translation resulting in omission of some aspects of the source text that are important for its understanding and thus distortion of the author's original message. A good translator will translate precisely and accurately (which does not mean literally, word for word) to render the author's intended message using words as close in their meaning as possible.

On the other hand, the translator should not be too close to the original text. This can make the target text impossible to understand – which leads us to the transformation, the second aspect of translation mentioned in Günter Grass's quote. The author's text rendered from one language to another is thus inevitably changed – but not too much and not in the wrong places, so that the author's message is not altered. The two pillars of Günter Grass's quote sum up the translator's dilemma and, at the same time, the competence of a good professional translator: they must be able to preserve the characteristics of the original text, while adjusting the target text to the relevant language and culture at the same time, so that the author's message is conveyed to the reader in a way that makes the reader forget this is a translation.

What other qualities should a good professional translator have, in addition to accuracy, to this end? A professional translator should be able to distinguish between what is relevant and what can or even should be omitted from the target language version to make the text understandable and the author's message reach the reader. This requires analytical skills. Of course, it is not about specific content but rather about style and expression. A simple example for that is the so-called double negation used in many languages, use of which in German would be clearly misplaced. The same applies to two- or even three-word phrases describing one and the same thing – a tool often used in English legal language to make the text as precise as possible – which would be irritating for the German reader ("any and all", "due and payable", "final and conclusive", to name but a few). It is sometimes difficult to find an exact equivalent in the target language to convey the message of the text. What is needed here is perseverance and creativity as well as passion for the language, because time-consuming research on the Internet is often necessary to find a source that fits the given context. Sometimes the target language simply does not have an equivalent for the word searched for. Then it is the translator's job to accurately rephrase the text using as few words as possible.

Good professional translators feel partly responsible for the final product to which they contribute by making its translation. If the translators take this approach, it inevitably implies that they will not be satisfied with a word-for-word translation of the source text. They will carefully choose words and invest themselves constructively in the translation to capture every important nuance of the source text and render it in the target text. If in doubt, they will consult the author - where possible - about phrases they are not sure about. This in turn presupposes that the translator must have the necessary specialist knowledge in the fields in which they make translations in addition to purely linguistic skills. Only those who know what they are talking about can choose words accurately and, if necessary, rewrite sentences in a way that delivers the author's message to the reader in the target language clearly and in an unchanged form. The translator's specialist knowledge is thus the main prerequisite for an adequate-quality translation. For example, translation of a technical article published in a professional journal can suddenly become embarrassing for the author and the translator where it has been rendered with disregard of the technical vocabulary common in the given specialist field. Two other fundamental qualities of a good translator are thus conscientiousness and versatility. A good translator only delivers translations that are well researched content-wise. If they are not acquainted with the necessary specialist vocabulary in the required field, it is their job to acquire such vocabulary so that the end product can be easily associated with the author who is an expert in the relevant field.

If one adds an open mind, helpfulness, discretion, reliability, and stress resistance to the list of the above-mentioned qualities, it becomes apparent that the entire alphabet is hardly sufficient to describe the qualities that make a professional translator a benefactor.

The qualities of a professional translator from A to Z

Acceptance of shared responsibility for the end product

Accurate choice of words

Analytical skills

Careful work methods

Constructive thinking

Conscientiousness

Creativity

Discretion

Helpfulness

Linguistic skills

Open mind

Passion for the language

Perseverance

Precision

Quality awareness

Sound judgement of relevance

Reliability

Rendering the author's intended message using words as close in meaning as possible

Specialist knowledge

Stress resistance

Versatility