[...] 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. [...] | [...] 译员只是没有得到承认,他们并不指望靠生计发财,只是想勉强过活。真正接受过翻译培训的人极少,但是多数人都接受了扎实的大学教育,至少有了扎实的母语语言知识。我过去有一个朋友,她就属于这一类。我的朋友圈扩大了,包括了其他的译员。我发现他们作为普通人更加有趣,还发现我们经常有相似的生活经历。我在结交朋友方面一点困难都没有,但是我总感到“不一样”,而且我确定他们也感受到了。我的朋友退休后,她推荐了我接替她。我现在加入了我一无所知的再保险领域。我还是那里唯一的译员,没有多少可求助的。然而,这是又一次提高…… 由于我的新工作,我开始浏览文件、提出问题并让公司帮我注册学习多门保险课程。保险学院就在街对面,我在他们的图书馆查阅了消防法规、保险制度及灭火器等目录。我当时正在学习我以前从未奢望过能做的事情:研究。第一次是我得翻译一份核电厂保险目的的建议书,我接到了那个部门负责人的一个电话,为我所完成的工作向我表示祝贺。“比我们习惯的工作好多了。”他说。真了不起!发生的事情是这样的,我所查阅的文件中的一份文档与我为咨询而正在处理的文档相似,但是当我看见我的前任使用了“核心”一词而非“堆芯”时,我就意识到这些文件对我没有帮助。我去了街对面的图书馆,查阅了“核电厂”。我立刻找到了所需要的所有术语。 当然,如今要成为一名出色的译员所下的功夫可比这个要多多了。[...] |