[...] 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. [...] | [...] Prevajalci enostavno niso bili prepoznani, niso pričakovali, da bodo veliko zaslužili, le za preživetje. Zelo malo ljudi je bilo dejansko usposobljenih za prevajalce, vendar je večina imela dobro visokošolsko izobrazbo in dobro znanje jezikov, vsaj svojega. Imel sem prijatelja, ki se padel točno v to kategorijo in moj krog prijateljev se je razširil in vključil še druge prevajalce. Spoznal sem, da so kot osebe veliko bolj zanimivi in odkril, da sva pogosto imela podobne življenjske izkušnje. Nikoli nisem imel težav pri sklepanju prijateljstev, vendar sem se vedno počutil "drugačnega" in prepričan sem, da so to čutili tudi oni. Ko se je moj prijatelj upokojil, me je priporočil kot svojo zamenjavo. Tako sem vstopil v področje pozavarovanj, o katerem nisem vedel ničesar. Bil sem tudi edini prevajalec in nisem imel veliko tega, na kar bi se lahko opiral. A bil je še en dosežek... V novi službi sem začel brskati po dokumentih, postavljati vprašanja in prepričal podjetje, da me je vpisalo na tečaje zavarovalništva. Fakulteta za zavarovalništvo je bila čez cesto in v njihovi knjižnici sem pregledal požarne kode, zavarovalne police in kataloge gasilnih aparatov. Učil sem se tega, česar prej nikoli nisem možnosti početi v izobilju: raziskovanja. Ko sem moral prvič prevesti predlog za potrebe zavarovanja jedrske elektrarne, me je poklical vodja tistega oddelka in mi čestital za opravljeno delo. "Primerljivo je s tem česar smo vajeni," je dejal. Kakšen napredek! Pogledal sem si namreč dokument, podoben tistemu, ki sem ga obravnaval kot vodilo, a ko sem videl, da je moj predhodnik uporabil besedo "nukleus" namesto "jedro", sem ugotovil, da so dokumenti zame neuporabni. Šel sem čez cesto v knjižnico in poiskal "jedrske elektrarne". Takoj sem našel vso terminologijo, ki sem jo potreboval. Sevede je potrebno veliko več, kot samo to, da si lahko danes dober prevajalec. [...] |