This poem is a great reminder of why we should always, always proofread—and for language service providers, why we should do it even more than the average writer. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over the reasons why.

1. Proofread the source material

Oftentimes, language service providers are given source material documents that the parent company wants to distribute at the same time as their translations. Theoretically, these documents will have been proofread already. After all, the parent company will want their readers to focus on the message of the documents and keep up their reputation and good impressions.

However, before translation, it’s essential that the source material be proofread again to ensure that the translator understands the meaning of it. Grammatical or spelling errors can cause the translated document to lose lots of meaning, and potentially bring about lots of costs to fix these mistakes later down the pipeline.

Let’s look at a common English example of a grammar mistake: “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “Let’s eat Grandma!” With just a forgotten comma, the entire meaning of the sentence changes into something out of a horror novel. An accurate translation of the second sentence’s meaning could spell disaster, if that sentence is a mistake.

2. Proofread the translation

People are only human—making mistakes is something everyone does, and there’s no shame in it. However, what’s important is how we monitor ourselves to make sure that we catch those mistakes and take responsibility for them.

Translators have the same ability to miss a comma or period, misspell a word, or accidentally misunderstand the meaning of a sentence in the source document. To be safe, it’s crucial to hire a separate translator to act as a proofreader for the translated documents.

3. Assure the quality of the final product before delivery

Even after a translation has been proofread, oftentimes, language service providers are tasked with putting the translation into a certain format—a pamphlet, a PowerPoint, a website, etc. Once the translation is in that format, it’s important to double-check the target document. You want to avoid crashing, missing or hidden text, text overflow, and a slew of other issues.

The need for proofreading all stems back to the need for a proper, professional, trustworthy identity between the parent company and the customer or reader. Glaring issues in the text, or visual problems in the final product, convey to the reader that the document was handled sloppily—and if the document was handled sloppily, why would the parent company treat the reader any differently?

Remember: we should always, always proofread.

However, by industry standards, they also have their own distinct professional traits. What do interpreters do that translators don’t? What does a translator need that an interpreter can do without? How different are they really on the job? Here are just a few of the things that set translators and interpreters apart from each other.

1. Work Mode
Professional translators and interpreters sometimes forget that many people outside of the industry often don’t even realize that these are two different professions. To put it as simply as possible, translators write while interpreters speak. A translator takes a text in one language and rewrites it in another language. Interpreters, on the other hand, listen to what someone says in one language and then convey it by speaking in another language.

The fundamental difference in their respective lines of work is this: a translator usually does not speak at a job, but must have excellent writing skills, with all the things this implies: perfect punctuation, spelling, grammar. A successful interpreter needs all the skills required of a good public speaker, delivering messages clearly by speaking.

Translators in general enjoy the luxury of having more time, but that also means they have to be skilled at personal time management and able to focus deeply on one thing for an extended period, whereas interpreters must be quicker on their feet, able to tune out distractions, and have strong multi-tasking skills.

2. Working Environment
Translators and interpreters have different tools in their arsenals, and work in different environments.

A modern translator is computer savvy and skilled with the leading translation software (MemoQ, Trados, Wordfast, Déjà Vu, etc). Translators often have more freedom in terms of where they can do their work, and since translation requires a great deal of focus and time, this means a comfortable space free from distraction, whether it be a home office or a space at the agency or company a translator works for.

Interpreters, by contrast, have much less personalized work areas, since they generally work in spaces that are not their own, although there are interpreters who work over the phone or through video calls from home. Interpreters in many cases also don’t own the equipment they work with: simultaneous interpretation requires microphones, audio transmission equipment, receivers, and headphones, but these are generally provided by the translation company or the client. Interpreters working in the consecutive mode have a more modest toolbox which usually includes just a pen and a notebook. Recently, tablets and digital pens with special features have been making their way into consecutive interpreters’ kits, but are not yet widespread.

3. Dealing With Pressure
Interpreters work under great pressure because what’s being said needs to be interpreted immediately, which doesn’t leave much time to think. For interpreters, time is very precious. If they spend too much time on a certain sentence or word, they run the risk of missing important information that follows.

By comparison, translators are not under immediate pressure but incremental pressure. They spend a long time refining their work and even invite others to edit and proofread it in order to ensure that the final product is as flawless as possible.

1. Read extensively

If you are a book lover, then you are half way there to being a good translator. Reading extensively is useful in that it helps to hone your writing skills and make you more sensitive to the subtle differences between similar words. As a translator in a specialized field (e.g. law, finance, medicine, etc.), reading parallel texts is even more crucial. Parallel texts make you familiarized with terms in a particular field and allow you to familiarize yourself with the field. As a result, your translation won’t look like it’s written by an outsider with no knowledge of the subject. For example, let’s say you’re translating a warranty from Chinese into English. If you find an English-language warranty and compare it with the original text, you’ll see how a warranty is formulated in English and you can use that reference as a guide for your own translation.

2. Write well

Being an excellent writer is essential to success in translation. Writing well means writing clearly, which is as necessary for communicating the source message in a translation as it is for making sense in any kind of written work. Don’t get confused – translation may be an art in its own right, but here writing well doesn’t refer to being a good creative writer; many translators may write impeccably, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have the creativity to write the next great novel from scratch. Writing is also a largely mechanical skill that can be learned. It means, in part, being familiar with the conventions and preferences of the often very different writing styles that are used in various fields – something which the previous tip can help you with.

3. Be patient and pay attention to detail

Unlike interpretation which is done within seconds, translation is an extended process and your finished texts will be there for all to see long after your work is done. Of course, there are both pros and cons to this: one good thing is that translators don’t have to work under quite the same pressure as interpreters, and they can afford to spend time choosing the most suitable word for any given context. One of the negative sides is that your work will likely be subject to greater scrutiny than many interpretations, since, especially in the digital age, a document can essentially exist indefinitely, whereas the average interpretation is gone forever after it’s been completed. In general, translation demands patience and extreme attention to detail. Translators need to be very careful in editing and proofreading their work in order to avoid mistakes before it is published or presented to others.

4. Learn how to do research

As a translator, you’re bound at some point to encounter a word or phrase you don’t know. Be it an idiom, the name of an organization, someone’s title, or even their name, translators need to have the ability to do extensive research using whatever tools are at their disposal. A translator’s research isn’t limited to looking for difficult to render words, either: they should know how and where to look for reference material – those parallel texts that were mentioned before, and other materials that will make translation much easier. Thanks to modern technology, translators today have incredible access to potential sources of research, starting with everyone’s favorite, Google, which can let you quickly check whether or not your translation is idiomatic in the target language. Frequently translators have to go much deeper than just a Google search, though, accessing various corpora, specialized dictionaries, trade publications, and so on. The internet even makes it possible to reach out to the author of a text to ask for clarification or explanation when a translator encounters difficulty understanding the source. As wonderful as the internet is, a translator shouldn’t rely on it to the total exclusion of good old-fashioned books and other printed material. You never know when you’ll be without internet access, and the sheer volume of information on the Web can make it difficult to know what’s correct, whereas a specialized Spanish-English medical dictionary has been compiled by an expert.

5. Use CAT tools

Recent years have witnessed the nearly universal application and rapid development of computer assisted translation tools, such as Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast, etc. These CAT tools have effectively become the industry standard and can help improve translation efficiency and save time and energy. CAT tools can cut down your time spent and simplify any number of situations, for example handling a large translation project that involves multiple languages. While some of these tools are both powerful and fairly user-friendly, it can be difficult to intuitively navigate and manage some CAT programs with all their features and options. Fortunately, there is no shortage of online tutorials and other CAT tool guides available, but whether you decide to make use of them or explore your CAT tool of choice independently, one thing is for sure: the sooner you learn how to use CAT tools effectively, the better.

These are just a few tips to help you become a better translator. There is one other thing which shouldn’t be overlooked: be passionate about translation! Great translators are “doing their job” all the time, always translating (at least mentally) whatever they see and hear around themselves, be it a sign at the park or an advertising slogan on TV. Enjoying what you do and making it into an everyday, fun activity may be the most important key to becoming a better translator.

Monterey Language Services is committed to bridging the world’s languages by providing quality, professional and efficient translation & interpretation services in over 175 languages.