Translator Lounge

First of all, I’d like to say I am delighted to have been invited to write an article for Translator Zone! I’m Karen, from Brazil and I have been a translator from English to Brazilian Portuguese for over eight years. Currently, I own an intercultural training company, [ex]Change Treinamento Cultural , through which I also provide translation services.

My interest in translation did not precede my interest in cultures, and only because I’ve always been obsessed we learning about and understanding new cultures have I become a translator. That said, after ‘careful’ consideration regarding the day-to-day issues related to our profession, I decided to write about the one that concerns me the most, culture in translation. Due to my first jobs as a translator having been offered to me, rather than I seeking them, when I first started in this career, like many in Brazil, I had no idea what were the rules and protocols for translation. I often found myself wondering how to translate and explain to my customers whenever I was presented with material that could be translated word for word, but would not have the same meaning or the same strength in the other language. This is a situation that is quite common when translating Brazilian Portuguese into English, because several types of communication, which are regarded as serious and in English must be treated with due formality, are often written in an informal and relaxed way in Portuguese. In Portuguese, the informal style of the text does not undermine its seriousness, but if translated word for word to English the document may not be received as such. So, I’d wonder… if I translate word for word and my Brazilian customer reads it, he’ll be happy to see his Portuguese text in English, however, it may not be understood as intended by the English-speaking interlocutor of this text. On the other hand, if I change it enough so that I believe it conveys the message my customer is trying to send, will my customer read the text and wonder whether I’m being faithful to his writing?

With every new translation I’d wonder what to do, and, perhaps due to my intercultural training, I’d always feel I should go with my ‘cultural gut’ and try to be faithful to the message, rather than to the actual words. Having made peace with that in my mind, a new problem arose, I started to allow myself too much ‘freedom’, and in several occasions I’d find myself ‘adapting’ the translated text to the target culture, when what I was actually doing was to ‘improve’ style and grammatical correctness.

Again, that led to a lot of consideration about my role as a translator. I know my customer wants his text to have a certain impact on the target audience of the material he’s written. However, sometimes, I know the way he’s written, even in the source language, will not do that and may also undermine my reputation as the translator who might be blamed for it. So what should I do? Act as editor and translator or stick to my role of conveying the message being sent, not intended? How will either choice affect my reputation? Will I always know what my customer’s underlying intentions were?

The way I finally made peace with those issues is developing sort of a flow chart for the decision making process. The first thing I do when I’m asked a translation is to ask where the source material is from, not which language it’s in, but where it actually is from. If I have no cultural background on that particular place, I explain to my customer what I believe to be the implications of my lack of cultural knowledge, and let him decide if it’s relevant to his source material (making a mental note to learn more about that culture in the future). If I have background on that culture, I explain the difference, for example, between a text that reads like Portuguese translated to English and a text that reads like it was written in English, and clarify my intention to write the latter. I also explain that, if he’s available to explain what he meant to say whenever I need him to, the chances of having a better translation increase. Once I’ve decided how to proceed about the cultural issues, I then read the text to identify style and correctness, and make sure I understand the purpose of that piece of writing. Knowing what my customer’s intentions are and having cultural background on both source and target languages, I can make straight forward decisions about how to adapt language and style, always prioritizing the message been conveyed, not the words.

The freelance translation market is a competitive one, there are many translators out there willing to take on work you refuse, for even less money, so many may argue that if you refuse work because you have no cultural background on a country, you’ll end up out of work. I agree that it may take longer for you to be able to live exclusively from your translations, but if you have a reputation of delivering only outstanding work, your chances of staying afloat in this market are much higher than if you have to work non-stop for little pay, several customers, and, what’s worst, competing against very bad professionals.

If every serious translator tried to build up a network of colleagues with different expertise and background, even in their own language pair, we could all benefit from providing higher standard services and separating the real translators from those who are able to translate words, not meanings, to a second language.
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Karen Montebello Saboya Brito Founder/Associate of [ex]Change Treinamento Cultural ; Bachelors degree in Biology by the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil. Karen has lived in Australia and England, and since then she’s been working as a freelance translator for national and international companies, as an interpreter in international events and as an English teacher.

Since 1996, Karen has been dedicating herself, through an international NGO, to work related to intercultural relations with emphasis on support to foreigners who come to live in Brazil and training Brazilians to live abroad. Additionally, she has broad experience in training people to work in multicultural environments.