Benefits Of Working With Native Translators

Translation service providers are steadily rising. Before you know it, they will be everywhere across the world. This is because everybody is in search of translation services. Whether it is a major corporation, or it’s an individual trying to learn a new language in 2020. Everyone needs translation services. In the past decade, research has shown that more and more software developers are attempting to develop machine translators to cope with this increasing demand for translation services. We keep on hearing now and again, “There is only so much that a human translator can do””.

The main reason behind the popularity of these machine translators is their speed, and their cheaper cost, compared to the human translators. Despite all this, human translators remain to be an invaluable resource for many employers. We will look at what employers look for in a human translator.

• Level of experience. Everyone is on a different level in terms of his or her profession. A lot of companies seeking translation services usually avoid amateur translators. They look at their experience level before hiring a translator. This is because working with professionals is less cumbersome, as they already know what to do.
• Education. I am sure you have met people who lie about their credentials so they can get a job or go into a school. The thing about lying is that you end up being incompetent, eventually failing to deliver. Academic credentials are essential, and they assure the employer that a translator is certified.
• Fields of specialization. Just like in any other field, translators can specialize in any field, be it, sales and marketing, research, administration, you name it. In the world of translation, specialization is usually either in a language pair or in a profession. What do I mean by that? You might get a translator whose specialty is working with specific language pairs. It might be English and French, Spanish and Italian, English and Arabic and so on and so forth. You might also get a translator who only works on administrative documents, or Medical documents, or Law documents. That is exactly what we mean by field of specialty. It would be crazy to work with a translator who has specialized in one specific language pair and expect them to work on a language pair they are not conversant with.
• Location. Translation work is so flexible, a translator can work from whichever location. A lot of employers, however, prefer to work with translators, who are in the same location as they are. It’s not that important though, it is just preferential. 
• Native speakers. This is another thing that employers look at, though they don’t really take it as seriously as they should. Being able to work with a native speaker, either in the original language or in the target language, is important. The translator should have a strong grasp of at least one language, ensuring that they do the translation perfectly. This is what we will look at for the rest of this article. We will look at some benefits that come with working with translators who are native speakers.
  1. It is very important to note that before people started learning different languages and gaining fluency in them, most translators were native speakers and they were not necessarily the best, considering the fact that they were not professionals. They were native speakers who knew the languages they worked with perfectly, despite them not being professionals. As much as their translation was perfect, they lacked experience and education. As the world of translation kept evolving, a new breed of translators came into existence. These were translators that were not native speakers, though they had certifications. They had an education; they were more experienced and spoke different languages fluently. Regardless of this, people seeking translation services still opted to work with native speakers. This is because they had a linguistic feeling, and could render the meaning of a source text into the target language with better precision than non-natives. They were also aware of the linguistic features of the target language and would be in a better position to come up with variants in line with the ones in the original language.
  2. Another group of native speakers is a group known as native bilinguals. These are individuals who can speak two languages with the same high level of fluency. This is the case for people who live in multicultural and multinational countries with over one official language. They could end up mastering multiple languages at a native level, eventually being native bilinguals. Getting a translator from such countries works to the benefit of the employer. They could literally kill two birds with one stone. Such translators can translate texts across two languages with so much ease and in the best quality. If you are in search of translators, then getting native bilinguals would be the best bet for you.
  3. In translation, you might get a project that requires the translator to have a deep level of understanding of the source (original) text, to translate it into the target language. A good example would be if one needs serious documents being translated from Portuguese to the English language. High chances are that the Portuguese speaker has to be a native, to denote how to translate the text into the English language, in the best way possible. It is always advisable to work with a native speaker who understands the source language, more than they do the target language. This is because chances are, their interpretation of the source language will determine how the translated text will be.
  4. If you are working with a non-native translator, but you have a native editor, then that would still be a good combination. The reason I say this is that the native editor would go through the translated text and make the corrections on the mistakes that the translator might have made. This is actually what most service providers do. They can work with any translator, but a native editor carries out the quality check. Native speakers usually end up processing the translated text to make it sound natural and seamless for the target audience. It might be a costly route to take, but it is the best option when you are not working with native translators. That said, next time you are looking for a translation service, you should be able to make a better choice between native or non-native translators, depending on your requirements.
  5. The main intent behind having native speakers doing most translations is so that the target audience gets the text in a form that they can easily understand. That is why it is very important for the person looking for translators to decipher who his or her target audience is. This ensures that he or she gets the best translator, who is a specialist in that field. It might be in the medical field, or the engineering field. A native translator will alter the style, vocabulary, articulation, and sentence length to better suit their needs and wants. This also ensures that the translations carry the same meaning as the original text.
  6. There are specific skills that native speakers usually have. More times than not, they are usually proficient in their native languages. Therefore, it is very easy for them to extract the meaning of the original text and denote it perfectly to the target language. To do this, translators examine documents thoroughly and identify ambiguous material that needs clarification. A native translator will recognize culture-bound clichés that make no sense in the target language.  They will pinpoint references that cannot translate internationally. That is why, choosing to work with native translators is advisable, it even makes the translation process much easier and interesting.

With that said, you can work with native translators, or get non-native translators alongside a native editor. The second option might be more expensive, necessary. Both options will work for your benefit.

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