Translating Polish: Marta’s Perspective on the Profession
- Where were you born? Where do you live now? I was born in Poland. I moved to England in 2010.
- Where did you go to school? (High school/university/special institute/other training?) Do you have any industry or topical training that you bring to your translation work? I graduated from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, specialization: English Philology. During my 5-year MA studies I was awarded a 1-year Erasmus program at Vigo University, Spain. My MA thesis was on Canadian literature. After graduation I was employed as a Junior Translator at SDL Poland (a local branch of SDL International) and this is how my translator’s career began. I also have a diploma from Public Relations.
- What are the language(s) do you work with? English<>Polish
- How long have you worked as a translator? 6 years
- How many languages do you know? Please name them. Polish, English, German, Spanish, some Hindi
- Where have you worked as a translator? SDL Poland, K-International
- How long have you been a freelancer? 3 years
- What are some of the unique complexities in translating from English to your language? Between other languages? Polish translation takes approximately 1/3x more space than an English source text. This is somewhat problematic when it comes to translating i.e. software.
- What is your specialty area? IT, electronics, websites, databases, games, formal letters, administration, quasi-legal content
- What is your favorite type of translation project and why? I have not had yet an opportunity to translate a literary work. I would love to translate a novel, testimonies or a book of similar sort, as literature has always been my passion.
- What specific problems do you face regularly in translation? Different viewpoints. It is not so uncommon to have another opinion regarding a term or style.
- How has Alpha Omega Translations helped you do your job? They have always been really helpful with all my queries.
- What issues you would like to see resolved in your work or relation with AOT? No issues so far.
- What benefits have you seen as a result of your work? Improvement of one’s craft. An opportunity to translate a meaningful, important, international content.
- Who are most of your clients that need help with translation? Government-related clients in UK looking for help in translation of documents for a large number of Polish immigrants, agencies translating IT and technical material.
- What are the issues or problems that you are asked most frequently to help solve? Terminology-related issues, style issues.
- What do think would help to improve translation in general?
Higher rates? (laughs). Low rates make the more inexperienced translators take too much work. Consequentially, an increasing number of projects is submitted without a self-proof or a double-check. But this is a general translation market issue.
Also, some project managers have a very analytical mind and a big set of instructions to follow. When equipped with these tools, they sometimes tend to disregard or misunderstand the nature of translation as an art. Sometimes there is no one correct translation but multiple ways of interpretation of the meaning.
- How do you view your role as a messenger of knowledge between different cultures?
It is exciting to be a communicator of sorts, a mediator between different cultures. However, the role of the translator has been increasingly depreciated over the last decade due to advance of technology and employment of machine translation on a larger scale. More and more often translation is seen as a cost rather than an art.
Category: Foreign Language
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