Translation and Professional Translators in the Market
The business market is requiring more and more skilled translators in order to translate their documentation and websites, so apparently, companies address to professionals in order to get their translations done. Agencies and freelance translators have a good load of work (even though translation demand is lower than the offer). By the way, if we consider results our certainties start to fade away. This is not a general rule or hypothesis applying to all countries in the world; Europe, in particular, the southern area, has nothing to do with translators’ status in the USA. If we have a look at localized websites, for instance, we can spot the results of these differences.
I recently read on an Italian recruitment website the wonderful translation from English into Italian of the word interview into Intervista. Unfortunately, localization is often considered as the less creative field of translation and the simplest from a fraseological point of view. As a matter of fact, many freeware, web applications and social networks are translated by volunteers and this is certainly not a way of recognizing the importance of translation and localization! If a single term has been wrongly translated, it’s very likely not to there have been a translator behind it.
There’s a huge gap between big companies who search for professional translators in order to translate software and websites and the examples above made.
Will it be a matter of budget or of common declassification of translation activities? The only conclusion we can come to is to advise to address to professional translators and agencies for both translators and company’s results protection! How and what we write and say is often more important than any marketing strategy!