Language translation is the process of transforming a document or a piece of text from one language, called the source language, into the target language. The process is done by a professional language translator, someone who has had the education and training in translating from one language to another. The process is often useful in publishing, in the preparation of educational materials, and in marketing that is geared towards an international market.
Uses of Professional Translation
Professional translation is used in various aspects of communication, whether it is for translating a book into another language for publication, for communicating with foreign clients who do not speak a word of English, for creating websites to attract a new slice of the foreign market, or for translating educational materials in other languages. Professional language translation will give competitive companies an edge over their competitors when they can effectively communicate with international customers in the customers' language.
In some instances people who look for professional translators do so because they cannot do so themselves. Translations take up a lot of time and require a lot of patient research. There are some people who might be able to do a translation but simply do not have time to do so.
Skills of a Good Professional Language Translator
A good translator must have a number of desired professional skills. The most important and relevant are fluency in both the source language and the target language, familiarity with the subject matter which must be translated, and an excellent understanding of the different correlations between the target and the source languages. He or she must be able to distinguish when to translate literally and when to paraphrase.
According to experts it is better to get a translator for work which will require him to translate from his second language into the native language, since it is uncommon for someone who is fluent in a second language to translate into that same language. The best translators are also bi-cultural. This means that they are immersed in the culture of the second language at the level that is required to make an accurate, cultural-relevant translation of the book or document.
A good professional translator also must have the attributes of being prompt, of having the language translation finished in due time. Translation does not simply mean exchanging one word to its equivalent word in the target language. More importantly, it requires the ability to render the exact meaning of the author's ideas using the target language with as little literary deviation as possible.
