[...] 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. [...] | […] Prevoditelji naprosto nisu dobivali zasluženo priznanje, nisu očekivali da će zarađivati bog zna što, već jednostavno preživljavati. Tek su rijetki zapravo prolazili obuku za prevoditelje, no većina je imala solidno fakultetsko obrazovanje i znanje o jeziku, barem vlastitu. Imala sam prijateljicu koja je pripadala upravo toj kategoriji, a krug prijatelja proširio mi se i na druge prevoditelje. Bili su mi mnogo zanimljiviji kao ljudi i često sam otkrivala da imamo slična životna iskustva. Nikad nisam imala problema sa sklapanjem prijateljstava, ali uvijek sam se osjećala „drukčije”… vjerujem da je i njima bilo tako. Kada se moja prijateljica umirovila, preporučila me za svoju zamjenu. Tada sam ušla u svijet reosiguranja, o kojemu nisam znala a ma baš ništa. Bila sam i jedina prevoditeljica u tom odjelu i nisam imala čvrst oslonac. Ipak, to je bio još jedan korak unaprijed… Na novom sam poslu počela pregledavati papire i postavljati pitanja te sam tvrtku nagovorila da me upiše na tečajeve o osiguranju. Koledž osiguranja nalazio se preko puta ulice i u njegovoj sam knjižnici čitala protupožarna pravila, police osiguranja i kataloge aparata za gašenje požara. Učila sam nešto što mi je dotad bio tek nedosanjan luksuz: istraživanje. Kada sam prvi put morala prevesti prijedlog u svrhu osiguranja nuklearne elektrane, primila sam poziv od vođe tog odjela, koji mi je čestitao na obavljenom poslu. „Nije loše u usporedbi s onime na što smo se naviknuli”, rekao mi je. Kakva pohvala! U čemu je bila tajna? Kao smjernicom sam se poslužila jednim dokumentom među onima sličnima tekstu s kojim sam se borila; kada sam vidjela da je moja prethodnica umjesto riječi „jezgra” upotrijebila „nukleus”, shvatila sam da su mi ti papiri beskorisni. Otišla sam preko puta, u knjižnicu, i istražila pojam „nuklearne elektrane”. Odmah sam pronašla svu terminologiju koju sam trebala. Naravno, danas dobre prevoditelje čini mnogo više od toga. […] |