Translator Lounge

I feel honored to have been invited to write this article and talk about one of the things I love the most: translation. My name’s Vanessa Nobre and I come from Brazil. I’ve been a translator for 10 years now, and I really love what I do. I graduated in law in 2002, but way before I was already working with languages. Since 1999, while in college (I was in law school), I started to teach English and Portuguese for foreigners. And the funniest thing is, I’ve never thought about being a translator. But one day, while in school, waiting for my class, my coordinator saw that I was reading the book “The Firm (John Grisham)”, and she asked me why I was so interested in law. I explained that I was a law student, and she became very interested and asked me if I wouldn’t be interested in translating some agreements for her, for she didn’t have the time. I agreed, and I have to say that, at that time, it was very hard for me, because translation and teaching are two different things. Of course I didn’t have the experience I have today, but nevertheless, I could do it, and the result was that since then, I’ve never stopped translating. Today, I’m a lawyer, and I’m currently working in a major law office in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as a legal translator. I also have my own company, Vanessa Nobre Traducoes, whose site can be accessed at www.vanessanobre.pro.br. Since that time, I went twice to the USA to improve my skills, and last time, I spent one year and three months there, and it was a great experience for me.

Translation is a very interesting area, because many people here in Brazil think they are a translator in potential. I explain: as we live in a developing country, many people find it hard to get very good jobs. And translation here may be a way out of unemployment. But there’s a problem: many people do not prepare themselves to work as a translator. They just finish their basic English course and grab the first opportunity they have to earn money with English. Many people choose to teach, because in Brazil, to teach English in language schools you do not need a degree or any king of registration. The same happens with translators. We do not have here in the country a union, or an agency to regulate the profession. You just become a translator, and then, it all depends on how lucky you are and how good you are to have professional success. But with the Internet, things become easier, and anyone can translate anything. From small articles to movies captions, everyone wants to be part of it. And of course, they find a lot of tools on the internet that may be “dangerous”, depending on how you use them. One of such tools is the automatic translators.

When you live in a country where almost 90% of the people do not speak another language, or, if they do, they can barely make themselves understood, these tools are like a two-edged sword. One example is some hotels and touristic places all over the country. Two years ago, I visited the Pousada do Rio Quente resort, in the state of Goias, Brazil. This place consists of several pools with naturally hot water and a water park complex. The place is gorgeous, as are the hotels around it. One day, I was walking around, and I could see some signs everywhere around the complex, indicating where I was and the attractions I could find in that place and all around the park, just like in any other amusement park or touristic complex. All signs were written in three different languages: Portuguese, English, and Spanish. The problem was, no one thought about hiring a professional translator to translate those signs to English and to Spanish. The impression I’ve got was that they just took the text in Portuguese and put it in an automatic translator and wrote the results there. The result was awful, to say the least. If I were a foreign tourist, I wouldn’t understand a word in those signs. I was really ashamed, because, as a Brazilian AND a translator, I couldn’t stop thinking about what the foreign tourists would think about my country: ‘They don’t have any structure, and evidently, they do not know how to write using proper English’.

The advice I would give all people who want to start working with languages, whether as a teacher or as a translator, is: Study and prepare yourself. Buy good books, invest in a good course, go abroad if you can, learn. This differential will be good for you. Don’t do this thinking about what others will think about you: Recognition comes with time. Nothing happens from one day to the other. If you really love what you do, and do it right, you will be recognized as a true professional.

If you want to get more information about translation, working experiences and exchange ideas and experiences, please, check out my personal blog: www.thetranslationplace.blogspot.com.