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31st translation contest: "A translator's life" » English to Catalan » Entry #34675


Source text in English

Translation #34675

[...] 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. [...]
[...] Els traductors no gaudien de reconeixement, ni aspiraven a tenir un sou gaire alt, només a subsistir. Pocs traductors tenien la formació de traductors, però la majoria tenia una bona formació universitària i un bon coneixement d'idiomes, com a mínim de la llengua pròpia. Jo tenia una amiga que encaixava perfectament en aquesta definició per la qual cosa el meu cercle d'amistats s'havia ampliat i incloïa altres traductors. Em van semblar molt més interessants com a persones i vaig descobrir que sovint teníem experiències vitals similars. No he tingut mai problemes per fer amics, però sempre em vaig sentir «diferent» i estic segura que ells també sentien el mateix. Quan la meva amiga es va jubilar, em va recomanar com a substituta seva i em vaig ficar de cap en el món de les reassegurances, del qual no en sabia res. A més, era l'única traductora allà i no tenia ningú a qui recórrer. No obstant això, era millorar laboralment...

Una vegada vaig començar la meva nova feina, em vaig posar a mirar la documentació, a fer preguntes i vaig aconseguir que l'empresa m'apuntés a cursets sobre assegurances. L'escola superior d'assegurances estava tot travessant el carrer, i a la biblioteca que hi tenien podia consultar els codis en matèria d'incendis, les pòlisses d'assegurances i els catàlegs dels extintors. Feia el que no m'havia pogut permetre mai el luxe de fer abans: fer recerca. La primera vegada que vaig haver de traduir una proposta per a l'assegurança d'una central nuclear, vaig rebre una trucada del cap d'aquell departament, felicitant-me per la feina que havia fet. «Es compara favorablement amb el que estem acostumats a rebre», em va dir. Quina alegria! El que vaig fer va ser consultar un document als arxius similar al que estava traduint per tal d'orientar-me, però quan vaig veure que el meu predecessor havia utilitzat la paraula «radiactiu» en lloc de «radioactiu», vaig adonar-me que els arxius no em servien de res. Vaig travessar el carrer, vaig anar a la biblioteca i vaig començar a cercar coses relacionades amb “centrals nuclears”. De seguida vaig trobar tota la terminologia que necessitava.

Actualment, cal molt més que això per ser una bona traductora, és clar.


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