The world is a now a small place, and its inhabitants freely mingle. It was only a few short decades ago that traveling to Spain on holiday was considered a huge adventure, and travel to further afield destinations was a major expedition. But the breakdown of borders and the advent of relatively cheap air travel have led to commuting to work in London from Spain a viable option. Many people now choose to buy property abroad which means dealing with real- estate and local lawyers, both of which require specialist help to complete. While websites and smartphones can be marginally useful, nothing beats a real translator.
Companies, as well as family’s can now place themselves in different countries according to their business needs. While this might be advantageous from some respects, it can be a problem from the point of view of communications; people may have mingled on the planet but languages have not centralized. Moving country is relatively easy, but the need for a translator may be pertinent. Before you hire a translator, you need to consider a number of points:
- Your business sector: – Most translators of a language will be able to handle everyday conversations and writings, but once you start using esoteric terms, the translator themselves has to have knowledge of the industry or sector that they are used in to retain context and meaning. Many non-German’s are perfectly adequate at speaking and reading high German but are unable to resolve even the smallest part of technical German, which is remarkably different. If you require specific parts of a language, you need to make sure that your translator can cover them.
- Regional Differences: – Like Cornish is different to Scouse, every country has a raft of regional dialects that are as individual as countries themselves. This obviously brings the potential for all sorts of problems with misunderstandings and misdirection’s.
- Writing versus speech: – When picking a translator, you should ensure that they are equally adept at the written side of the language that you need translated as well as being able to handle the spoken side. And as with the spoken language, there are regional differences in some words which may create confusion, or even cause offence to others. You have to ensure that the work your translator is doing is completely what you want.
- Slang terms: – Languages are constantly changing with new words being added to official dictionaries on a regular basis. Many of these come from words that start as slang or popular culture before crossing over into mainstream language, but care should always be taken that your translator is aware of which slang words are acceptable to use.
Whether you are using them for business, to complete legal documentation, or simply to help you integrate in a new society, a translator is an absolute must. It becomes a particular issue that you are attempting to gauge the effectiveness of someone in a language that you don’t know yourself, but a good suite of qualifications and recommendations should be a good starting point for selecting your perfect translator.
This article was written on behalf of PL Translations. PL Translations is a Dublin based translation & interpreting company and consists of a team of professional, experienced translators and interpreters.