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31st translation contest: "A translator's life" » English to Danish » Entry #34751


Source text in English

Translation #34751

[...] 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 ganske enkelt ikke anerkendelse. De kunne ikke forvente at få en høj løn, men blot have til dagen og vejen. Meget få mennesker var rent faktisk uddannede oversættere, men de fleste havde en god universitetsuddannelse og et solidt kendskab til sprog – i det mindste til deres modersmål. Jeg havde en ven, der passede perfekt ind i den kategori, og min vennekreds blev udvidet til at omfatte andre oversættere. Jeg syntes, de var meget mere interessante som mennesker, og opdagede, at vi ofte havde gjort samme erfaringer i livet. Jeg har aldrig haft problemer med at få venner, men jeg har altid følt mig "anderledes", og jeg er sikker på, at de også har haft samme oplevelse. Da min ven gik på pension, anbefalede hun mig som sin afløser. Jeg trådte nu ind i en verden af genforsikring, som jeg ikke vidste noget som helst om. Jeg var desuden den eneste oversætter på stedet, og jeg havde ikke meget at falde tilbage på. Men det var dog et trin op ad karrierestigen.

På mit nye job begyndte jeg at læse dokumenterne igennem, stille spørgsmål og få firmaet til at tilmelde mig kurser i forsikring. Forsikringsakademiet lå på den anden side af gaden, og jeg læste op på brandregulativer, forsikringspolicer og kataloger over brandslukkere i deres bibliotek. Jeg var ved at lære noget, jeg aldrig før havde haft mulighed for at dyrke, nemlig researcharbejde. Første gang jeg skulle oversætte et forslag i forbindelse med forsikring af et atomkraftværk, fik jeg et opkald fra lederen af afdelingen, som roste det arbejde, jeg havde leveret. "Det er i samme liga, som det, vi er vant til", sagde han. Sikke en optur! Det, der skete, var, at jeg støttede mig til et dokument fra arkivet, der lignede det, jeg var i gang med. Men da jeg så, at min forgænger havde brugt ordet "nukleus" i stedet for "kerne", indså jeg, at arkivet ikke kunne bruges. Jeg gik over på den anden side af gaden til biblioteket og slog "atomkraftværker" op. Jeg fandt straks al den terminologi, jeg havde brug for.

Det kræver naturligvis meget mere end det at være en god oversætter nu om stunder. [...]


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