[...] 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. [...] | [...] Prevodioci jednostavno nisu bili dovoljno priznati, nisu očekivali neku posebnu zaradu, već tek toliko da mogu da prežive. Jako mali broj ljudi je zapravo obučen za prevodilački posao, ali većina ima solidno fakultetsko obrazovanje i dobro znanje, bar sopstvenog, jezika. Jedna moja prijateljica je spadala baš u tu kategoriju i moj krug prijatelja se proširio obuhvatajući i druge prevodioce. Ti ljudi su mi bili mnogo zanimljiviji i često smo imali slična životna iskustva. Nikad mi nije bilo teško da se sprijateljim s ljudima, ali uvek sam se osećala nekako drugačije, a sigurna sam da su to i oni primećivali. Kada se moja prijateljica penzionisala, preporučila me je za svoju zamenu. Upala sam u svet osiguranja o kojem ništa nisam znala. Tamo sam bila jedini prevodilac i nisam imala neki oslonac. Međutim, to je bio još jedan korak napred… Na svom novom radnom mestu, počela sam da pregledam dosijee, da postavljam pitanja i kompanija me je poslala na kurseve iz oblasti osiguranja. Viša škola osiguranja bila je prekoputa i u njihovoj biblioteci sam proučavala pravilnike za zaštitu od požara, polise osiguranja i kataloge aparata za gašenje požara. Učila sam nešto čime nikada ranije nisam imala priliku da se bavim – istraživanjem. Kada sam po prvi put morala da prevedem predlog za potrebe osiguranja nuklearne elektrane, pozvao me je rukovodilac tog odeljenja čestitajući mi na odrađenom poslu. „Bolje od onoga na šta smo navikli”, rekao je. Koja divota! Zapravo sam bila pogledala dokument iz dosijea sličan onome kojim sam se bavila, ne bih li pronašla neke smernice, ali kad sam videla da je moj prethodnik upotrebio reč „nukleus”, umesto „jezgro”, shvatila sam da mi nema vajde od tih dosijea. Otišla sam u biblioteku preko puta i potražila „nuklearne elektrane”. Odmah sam pronašla terminologiju koja mi je trebala. Naravno, da biste u današnje vreme bili dobar prevodilac potrebno je mnogo više od toga. [...] |