What I Have Learned While Working as a Translator (So Far)

For today, I decided to make a post about three things that I have learned while I am working and training to become a translator.

There are, perhaps, several contents available out there that already discussed what I wrote here, but I believe that framing this as a manner of sharing my own personal experiences will not only add specificity, but also made the post as more like a series of subjective tips that people can take or leave, rather than lessons that should be accepted from authority that can be completely trusted.

With that said, here are the three things that I have learned:

1) Becoming a translator requires not just knowing, but also mastering languages. That seems obvious at a glance, but in the process of becoming a translator, I came to realize how much I do not know about Indonesian language (which I talked about previously here).

2) Research skill is just as important when it comes to translation. Often times the job is about searching through references, whether digital or print, to find not only the suitable words for the target language, but also to comprehend the idea or topic being expressed in the source text.

3) You cannot be too devoted to the source text. It is tempting to do this because the go-to-instinct is to preserve as much meaning as possible and any act of paraphrasing feels like running the risk of losing not just the nuance of the source text, but also the critical components. However, as I learned time and again, being too precious about the source text often leads to stilted and awkward translation. By the end of the day, the number one question to ask is “Will the target audience understand what I am saying?”.

That is all for me today. I hope you may find this useful!