Multi-directional Translation

The translation industry is a profession like any other; it's got its shares of unwritten guidelines and rules that translators should follow along with translators who do and don't follow them.

 

When I was in my translation program in college, one of these "guidelines" that the professors told us over and over again was that we should only ever translate into our native language. So I should only ever translate from Spanish to English and native Spanish speakers would do the opposite.

 

This counsel we were given does seem to make sense when you first begin as a translator. You are usually more fluent in your native language and have an easier time rendering another language into that language, than vice versa.

 

However, when translators finally leave the comfort of school and begin competing with other translators in the market, they often find that this guideline is hardly ever adhered to. Translators who promote their services advertise that they are equally able to translate both directions between a language pair. I often wonder how many of these translators are as good as they advertise and are able to go both ways.

 

The American Translator's Association (ATA) provides certification tests for translators and they are very specific that translators who advertise their certification must pass language direction-specific tests. For example, a Spanish-to-English translator must pass a Spanish-to-English translation test in order to be certified in that specific language pair and specific direction. If they want to be certified from English-to-Spanish, they must take another test specific to that direction.

 

So why do translators who are not certified advertise multi-directional translation services? I think that one of the reasons is because of the number of translators in the market. If you are an English-to-Spanish translator, you could be losing business by not accepting offers for Spanish-to-English translations.

 

Also, certain a certain language direction might not be in as high a demand as the other direction. For example, I've noticed that there are more translators offering Spanish-to-English translation services than English-to-Spanish and so therefore there might be more jobs going from Spanish-to-English.

 

Now the real question is whether or not this is an ethical thing to do. I know many translators that are not certified by the ATA and they get plenty of business from clients who are happy with their work. Individual translators need to honestly assess their translation abilities and decide whether it would be fair to a client to proclaim their ability in a certain language direction.

 

By doing so, they will help the translation industry earn more respect and be able to provide a better product to the client.

 

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