[...] 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 jednostavno nisu dobivali priznanje, nisu očekivali veliku zaradu, samo su preživljavali. Vrlo malo ljudi je zapravo bilo obučeno kao prevoditelj, ali većina je imala čvrsto sveučilišno obrazovanje i solidno znanje jezika, barem svog maternjeg jezika. Imam prijateljicu koja je upravo spadala u tu kategoriju, i moj krug prijatelja se proširio da uključuje i druge prevoditelje. Shvatio sam da su mi oni puno zanimljiviji kao osobe i otkrio da često dijelimo slična životna iskustva. Nikad nisam imao problema u pronalaženju prijatelja, ali uvijek sam se osjećao "drugačije", i siguran sam da su i oni to osjećali. Kad je moja prijateljica otišla u mirovinu, preporučila me je kao svoju zamjenu. Tako sam ušao u područje reosiguranja, o kojem nisam ništa znao. Također sam bio jedini prevoditelj tamo, i nisam imao mnogo na što se osloniti. Međutim, to je bio još jedan korak naprijed... Na novom poslu, pregledavao sam dokumente, postavljao pitanja i nagovorio tvrtku da me upiše na tečajeve osiguranja. Fakultet osiguranja bio je preko puta ulice, i konzultirao sam protupožarne propise, police osiguranja i kataloge aparata za gašenje požara u njihovoj knjižnici. Učio sam ono za što nikad prije nisam imao luksuza da mogu raditi: istraživanje. Prvi put kad sam morao prevesti prijedlog u svrhu osiguranja nuklearne elektrane, dobio sam poziv od šefa tog odjela koji mi je čestitao na odrađenom poslu. "Usporedivo s onim na što smo navikli", rekao je. Kako sam bio oduševljen! Ono što se dogodilo je da sam dobio dokument iz spisa sličan onome s kojim sam se bavio za smjernice, ali kad sam vidio da je moja prethodnik koristio riječ "nucleus" umjesto "jezgra", shvatio sam da mi spisi nisu bili od koristi. Otišao sam preko ulice do knjižnice i potražio "nuklearne elektrane". Odmah sam pronašao sve terminologije koje su mi bile potrebne. Naravno, danas je potrebno mnogo više od toga da biste bili dobar prevoditelj. [...] |