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31st translation contest: "A translator's life" » English to Serbian » Entry by Maša Radonić


Source text in English

Translation by Maša Radonić (#36205)

[...] Translators just didn't get recognition, they didn't expect to make much of a living, just get by. Very few people were actually trained as translators, but most had a solid college education and a solid knowledge of languages, at least their own language. I had a friend who fell exactly into that category and my circle of friends expanded to include other translators. I found them to be much more interesting as people, and discovered that we often had similar life experiences. I never had trouble making friends, but I always felt "different" and I'm sure they felt it too. When my friend retired, she recommended me as her replacement. I now entered the realm of Reinsurance, of which I knew nothing. I was also the only translator there, and didn't have much to fall back on. However, it was another notch up....

On my new job, I started looking through the files, asking questions and got the company to enroll me in Insurance courses. The College of Insurance was across the street, and I consulted fire codes, insurance policies and fire extinguisher catalogs in their library. I was learning what I had never had the luxury of being able to do before: research. The first time I had to translate a proposal for purposes of insurance of a nuclear plant, I got a call from the head man in that department, congratulating me on the job I had done. "Compares favorably with what we are used to," he said. What an upper! What happened was that I consulted a document in the files similar to the one I was tackling for guidance, but when I saw that my predecessor had used the word "nucleus" instead of "core", I realized that the files were useless to me. I went across the street to the library and looked up "nuclear plants." I immediately found all the terminology I needed.

It takes a great deal more than that to be a good translator these days, of course. [...]
Iz teksta "Refleksije (iz) prevodilačkog života" Susane Gris


[...] Prevodioci jednostavno nisu dobijali priznanje, nisu imali očekivanja da će dobro da zarađuju za život, već tek da se provuku. Zapravo je samo nekolicina ljudi bila obučena za prevodioce, ali većina je imala solidno fakultetsko obrazovanje i solidno poznavanje jezika, barem svog sopstvenog jezika. Imala sam prijateljicu koji je spadala upravo u tu kategoriju i moj krug prijatelja se proširio i uključio druge prevodioce. Shvatila da su mnogo interesantniji kao ljudi i otkrila da često imamo slična životna iskustva. Nikada nisam imala problema sa sklapanjem prijateljstava, ali sam se uvek osećala "drugačijom“ i sigurna sam da su i oni to osećali. Kada se moja prijateljica penzionisala, preporučila me je kao svoju zamenu. I tako sam se našla u oblasti reosiguranja, o kome nisam znala ništa. A i bilа sam jedini prevodilac tamo i nisam imala na šta da se oslonim. Međutim, bio je to još jedan korak dalje...

Na novom poslu sam počela da pregledam dosijee, da postavljam pitanja i nagovorila sam firmu da me upiše na kurseve osiguranja. Visoka škola za osiguranje bila je preko puta ulice, i u njihovoj biblioteci sam pregledala vatrogasne kodove, polise osiguranja i kataloge aparata za gašenje požara. Učilа sam ono što nikad ranije nisam imala luksuz da radim: istraživanje. Prvi put kada je trebalo da prevedem predlog za potrebe osiguranja nuklearne elektrane, nazvao me čelnik tog odeljenja i čestitao mi na obavljenom poslu. "Dobro je, u poređenju sa onim na šta smo navikli", rekao je. Kakav uspeh! Ono što se desilo je da sam za smernice konsultovala dokument u dosijeima, sličan onom koji sam obrađivalа, ali kada sam videla da je moj prethodnik koristio reč "jezgro" umesto "nukleus", shvatila sam da su mi dosijei beskorisni. Prešla sam ulicu i otišla do biblioteke, gde sam potražila „nuklearne elektrane“. I odmah pronašla svu neophodnu terminologiju.

Naravno, ovih dana je potrebno mnogo više od toga da biste bili dobar prevodilac.



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