Tips for Foreign Language Translators

I've been translating from the English to the Spanish and vice versa for as long as I can remember. Translating for remuneration, on the other hand, came about relatively recently and more or less by happenstance—part outgrowth of academic editing gigs in grad school and part pandemic-related changes to business and higher education.

As an editor, I enjoy these increasingly frequent departures from my usual slate of projects, but as an anthropologist, I bask in translation's cultural underpinnings and investigative nature. For the burgeoning translators and bicultural interlocutors just starting out, I offer a few observations and notes of caution to keep in mind when de-othering the foreign.

1. Strive to work with entities whose principles and aims align with yours, even as a freelancer. Working with companies and people with whom you share values and goals will encourage valuable connections and, in turn, lead to more rewarding work.

I've been translating for a 501(c)3 non-profit headquartered in Massachusetts for some time now that's devoted to creating and developing successful cooperative enterprises (co-ops) here in the U.S. and abroad. It was a driving focus of my dissertation to promote active stakeholder participation in places and situations where it was missing and needed, and so this particular organization's active promotion of employee-ownership resonates with my penchant for nurturing democratic ideals.

2. Try to take on projects that align with your background: credentials, formal education, work history, and/or lived experience. International business, cultural anthropology, and archival research are some of the disciplinary areas I feel comfortable and confident operating in. This makes it less challenging to work with, and inevitably work through, issues and pre- and/or misconceptions with a client.

For example, when I was recently asked to undertake a cultural sensitivity read for a textbook publisher, I found myself offering original content and line edits simply because I was well-versed in the subject. The client took notice and appreciated the added value. If you're starting out, this could be a great way to demonstrate your credibility and set yourself apart as a reliable reference, so long as you remember to set reasonable boundaries of time and workload.

3.  Continuing Education. Reading, writing, and listening in the foreign language are crucial to preserving linguistic memory, expanding vocabulary, and honing style. Regional differences can also be dramatic within a language family, and staying abreast of changes in slang, connotations, and syntax are a part of the job description. Without regular use or exposure, the nature of skills is to disappear, but re-engagement can be just a step away.

UC Berkeley's Institute of Andean Studies (IAS) recently underwent a 'Blue Ribbon Commission' to investigate the legacy of discrimination in the field of Andean archaeology and in the Institute itself amid calls for a general realignment with American society's purported principles. Putting one of the many pieces of advice into practice, the IAS formed a Translation Committee to increase engagement with fellow Spanish-speaking social scientists working in the Andean region—a dumbfounding omission over the Institute's 60-year existence.

I volunteered to join the founding group and to translate and interpret live for the IAS' first bilingual annual meeting. I quickly discovered that much of my field-specific lexicon had atrophied after five years away from Peru. Thankfully, a copy of Latin American Antiquity was within reach and so I was able to refresh a bit. But the take-home is that conversational comfort in a foreign language is no substitute for industry-specific knowledge.

In lieu of, or better yet in combination with, periodic immersion, creating a style sheet of commonly employed terms and their spellings can be enough to get you by in a pinch.

4. Establish linguistic priorities with a client and do so early. Structure, intention, and tone can all be tinkered with to impart clarity, style, flow, and nuance. As an editor in the English, I guide authors to keep their language fresh, precise, concise, active, and real, in accordance with the famed Susan Bell book The Arftul Edit's key recommendations. Metaphorically-speaking, to maintain an author's original intent is the "floor" and to find ways to emphasize this intent, and to elicit the same reaction in a reader, in a foreign language is the "rooftop". As a matter of policy, I usually send a chapter sample of my translation soon after signing a contract to lay out expectations and receive feedback from the client before proceeding.

As when I first began developing an archaeologically peppered lexicon in Spanish (i.e., badilejo = trowl; informe = report) you, too, will begin to develop your own industry-specific vocabulary alongside a unique local or regional way of speaking. Latin America by and wide preserved a considerable amount of local or regional Indigenous language, practices, and beliefs into the quotidian and contemporary.

Mestizaje, aka ethnic/cultural syncretization, naturally extended into the linguistic realm and came to include the creation of new Spanish words such as ceja de selva, which refers specifically to the eastern Andean flanks and is regularly translated as 'cloud forest' in academic literature. This specific type of cloud forest is a “region between 800 and 3,800 meters above sea level, presenting a very rugged relief, with narrow and deep river canyons, and with slopes greater than 40º” (congreso.gob.pe). The phrase translates literally from the Spanish to 'jungle's eyebrow'.

In other words, why is it not entirely correct to translate ceja de selva to 'cloud forest'? Because ceja de selva takes elevation and topography into account, to say nothing of the metaphorical qualities erased in its common English translation.

Take note that in the course of a project you will also come across seemingly tangential terms and concepts that may seem extraneous. Don't assume they are and write them off. Exposure to new terms is an opportunity to build your vocabulary and your interpretive abilities.

Translation and interpretation, like culture generally, is temporally and spatially informed, so underappreciating the opportunity to learn that comes with indirectly related material could cost you credibility in the long run.

5. Avoid overpromising. Translation work can be difficult, and it can get particularly complicated if deliverables are on a tight schedule. The difference between proficiency and expertise in this line of work is nuance—capturing the bite, cadence, and tension of an original piece in another language. In other words, interpreting from or to a parallel universe with an alternative history, mode of conduct, and communicational norms. To accurately capture sentiment and intentionality a translator depends on being able to place themselves in an emotional space that overlaps (or exchanges) both systems. It is an intimate place that requires concentration and memory and likely more than a little correspondence with the author. Give yourself time to do it right.

In conclusion, communications are challenging even in one's own dominant language and between two native speakers. Nevertheless, the better people understand one another the better off they are in far-reaching and important ways. While mutual understanding is certainly no guarantee of peace and prosperity, the process of literary translation offers two-fold benefits. Besides rendering the foreign a little more familiar, it operates as an editing tool for the source language, critiquing assumptions, definitions, and understandings in the original language in the process. Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that translation is not just for them but also for us.

Written by: Edward Zegarra

Bibliography and Recommended Reading:

Memory Speaks, by Julie Sedivy

Do I Make Myself Clear? Why Writing Well Matters, by Harold Evans