Translating Both Ways
by Danilo Nogueira
Everybody knows translators should work only into their
mother languages. You should tell that to my clients. My clients are CPAs,
lawyers, tax consultants and they expect me to work with them as project
translator not as English à Portuguese translator.
A project, in my area of activity as a professional
translator, often involves translating inquiries received from abroad for the
benefit of monolingual Brazilian professionals and then translating their
responses into English for the benefit of foreign professionals who do not
know Portuguese. In other cases, it involves a joint effort involving people in
several different countries.
In special cases, a native speaker is asked to revise my
translation. This is usually – but by no means not always – an expatriate
partner. In the majority of cases, though, there is not even time to think about
“revision by native speaker,” for my client is already running behind
schedule when the original reaches me for translation.
The following case is typical of a series of jobs in
which professional translators are often involved. The fact that I worked on
both directions may be interesting, but not necessarily relevant.
My client was one of the big CPA firms and they had to
submit a bid for a large job. The bid had to be submitted in three languages:
Portuguese for Brazil, English for the U.K. and Dutch for the Netherlands.
Contributions for the final bid were to be supplied by members of the client’s
staff in the three countries.
The process began in Brazil. I was given a text in
Portuguese, to be translated into English, to be submitted to the steering
committee for the proposal, in London, still in draft form.
In London, the texts were revised by professional
writers, who made a series of changes. Some of those changes only improved my
style; others however, deeply altered the content of the bid. In addition, the
text received considerable additions from the London people, concerning the role
their office would play in the job.
At the same time, several persons were busy in Amsterdam
adding information and correcting details of content.
After two days, I received a “first draft” of the
final text in English. My job was then to provide my client with an
“updated” Portuguese text.
This is usually a nightmare, because the translator has
to hunt for the changes and implement them. Not in this case, though. I simply
created an English to Portuguese translation memory, exported my Portuguese
to
English memory as a text file and re-imported it into the new database.
Then I ran the “first draft” through the new English
à Portuguese database. TWB showed me all the changes and where they should be
implemented in the translation. Where the change was merely an improvement in my
English style, there was nothing to do but to keep it for later use if the
occasion came. However, if the changes affected the contents, the Portuguese had
to be amended accordingly. Obviously, much of the “first English draft” was
exactly as I had done it and thus TWB gave me a 100% match.
As the English were doing their job, the Dutch were doing
theirs and I received a “second and final draft” from London, incorporating
the Dutch additions and the last changes made by the English editors even before
I had completed my translation of the “first draft”.
This type of thing is usually a double nightmare. But it
was very simple. I simply abandoned the “first draft” and ran the second
through the English à Portuguese data base. Again, what the Dutch had changed
was clearly shown in my screen and the corresponding changes in the Portuguese
version were easy to make.
My client was surprised at how fast I could update the
Portuguese text – and I now have a “native” text of the proposal, for
future reference.
