[...] 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. [...] | [...] Prevoditelji jednostavno nisu dobili priznanje, nisu očekivali da će puno zaraditi za život, samo su se snalazili. Vrlo mali broj ljudi zapravo je bio obučen za prevoditelje, ali većina je imala solidno fakultetsko obrazovanje i solidno znanje jezika, barem vlastitog jezika. Imao sam prijatelja koji je spadao upravo u tu kategoriju i moj se krug prijatelja proširio na druge prevoditelje. Bilo mi je mnogo zanimljivije kao ljudi i otkrio sam da često imamo slična životna iskustva. Nikad nisam imao problema sa sklapanjem prijateljstava, ali uvijek sam se osjećao "drugačijim" i siguran sam da su i oni to osjećali. Kad je moja prijateljica otišla u mirovinu, preporučila me kao svoju zamjenu. Sada sam ušao u carstvo reosiguranja, o kojem nisam znao ništa. Bio sam i jedini prevoditelj tamo i nisam se imao na što osloniti. Ipak, bio je to još jedan korak.... Na novom poslu počeo sam pregledavati dosjee, postavljati pitanja i natjerao tvrtku da me upiše na tečajeve osiguranja. Visoka škola za osiguranje nalazila se preko puta, pa sam u njihovoj knjižnici pogledao protupožarne pravilnike, police osiguranja i kataloge aparata za gašenje požara. Učio sam ono što nikad prije nisam imao taj luksuz: istraživati. Prvi put kad sam trebao prevesti prijedlog za potrebe osiguranja nuklearke, nazvao me čelni čovjek tog odjela i čestitao mi na obavljenom poslu. "Povoljno u usporedbi s onim na što smo navikli", rekao je. Kakav gornji dio! Dogodilo se to da sam pogledao dokument u datotekama sličan onom koji sam vodio, ali kad sam vidio da je moj prethodnik upotrijebio riječ "nukleus" umjesto "jezgra", shvatio sam da su mi datoteke beskorisne . Otišao sam preko puta do knjižnice i potražio "nuklearne elektrane". Odmah sam pronašao svu potrebnu terminologiju. Da biste bili dobar prevoditelj ovih dana, naravno, potrebno je mnogo više od toga. [...] |