My Dream Job - Translator

When I was a little girl, people asked me quite often: “What would you like to do when you grow up?” I began by saying I’d love to be a vet. Then, I decided to be a biologist. Finally, I figured it out: my dream job is translating. It’s something I’d like to do very much, since I enjoy learning new languages. Interpreting is also quite interesting. Sometimes, there are people who think they’re the same, but translating and interpreting are different things.

Translating or interpreting?

On the surface, the difference between interpreting and translation is only the difference in the medium: the interpreter translates orally, while a translator interprets written text. Both interpreting and translation presuppose a certain love of language and deep knowledge of more than one tongue.

Translation

The differences in the training, skills, and talents needed for each job are vast. The key skill of a very good translator is the ability to write well, to express him/herself clearly in the target language. That is why professional translators almost always work in only one direction, translating only into their native language. Even bilingual individuals rarely can express themselves in a given subject equally well in two languages. And many excellent translators are far from being bilingual - they may not be, and need not be, fluent speakers of the source language (the language of the original text being translated). The key skills of the translator are the ability to understand the source language and the culture of the country where the text originated, and, using a good library of dictionaries and reference materials, render that material into the target language.

Interpretation

An interpreter, on the other hand, has to be able to translate in both directions, without the use of any dictionaries, on the spot.There are two types of interpreting: consecutive and simultaneous. In the most popular form of simultaneous interpreting the interpreter sits in a booth wearing a pair of headphones and speaking into a microphone. Strictly speaking, "simultaneous" is a misnomer: the interpreter can't start interpreting until he/she understands the general meaning of the sentence. Depending on how far in the sentence the subject and the verb are located, the interpreter into English may not be able to utter a single word until he/she heard the very end of the sentence in the source language! This should make it evident how hard the task of the interpreter really is: he/she needs to be translating the sentence into the target language while simultaneously listening to and comprehending the next sentence.

Sounds really nice and challenging, right? :-)

Source: http://world.std.com/~ric/what_is_int.html