Новости
Студенты кафедры ИЯ ГФ о профессии переводчика
Студенты второго курса кафедры ИЯ ГФ поразмышляли о профессии переводчика накануне профессионального праздника.
30 сентября 2018 г. отмечается Международный день переводчика, профессиональный праздник всех устных и письменных переводчиков. Праздник обязан своим возникновением дню памяти святого Иеронима Стридонского, покровителя переводчиков и был официально учреждён Международной федерацией переводчиков (FIT) в 1991 году. В 2017 году этот день объявляен Международным днём переводчика ООН, празднуемым также в рамках ООН.
Девиз праздника в 2018 г.: «Перевод: содействие развитию культурного наследия в эпоху перемен» (Translation: promoting cultural heritage in changing times).
Студентам группы ИЯ-73 предложили порассуждать на тему выбранной профессии, и вот чем они поделились в своих эссе:
Виолетта Гусакова:
You are in the second grade of elementary school. A new teacher enters your classroom and says: “Good morning, guys! I’m your English teacher”. Now you have a new subject. You start studying a new language. Your textbook is called “Enjoy English” and you enjoy. Games, exercises, new strange words, new sounds, dialogues, reading, listening, dictations, writing. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes it is very difficult. You are scared of tests. You grumble when you have a lot of homework. It is the part of your school daily routing.
But you get older. You understand that the day when you leave your school will come soon. You must think what to do after that. What is your line? What do you like to do? What kind of activities do you want to be devoted to? You compare different variants, read the information on the websites of universities, visit open days and ask your parents, teachers, friends and some university students for advice. However, you remember that you must take a final choice yourself.
Your school subjects stop being just school subjects. One day you suddenly understand that English may be not only something which is necessary for any schoolchild to get “A” and for every person to spend their holidays abroad. You may know not only how to say “Hello!” to a foreigner. When you were a child, you read a lot of books and watched many films including British, American, German ones and so on, but you didn’t think that somebody put a lot of efforts to make these foreign stories, novels and movies understandable for you and to keep all the thoughts of their authors and creators. But now you understand that there are not only writers, actors, and directors, but also translators who do this work. You think “It’s decided!” and start considering translating as a career.
This job has a lot of advantages. It is an amazing opportunity to meet new wonderful people who have different traditions and culture. It may be an opportunity to travel. It is great to read books and to watch films in the original language and then to interpret them for the people who do not speak it. It is... why do I list them? I think you know all the advantages yourself. It is more important not to forget that in some ways it may be a real challenge. First of all, a translator must have a very good memory. You must be attentive and able to work with a great deal of information. You must be always ready to develop if you want to be successful. So if you would like to interpret and to translate different kinds of texts, for example, scientific and technical, legal, medical and so on, you must be competent to deal with them. The main way to acquire the foreign language is practice, so you should always work and try to speak, to write, to listen, to read and to translate, of course. In other words, a lazy person hardly can be a good translator. The last and the most important things I want to emphasize are your excellent knowledge of your own native language and your love of the Word.
It only seems that translating is easy. It is not enough to know only meanings of words and grammar rules. You need to feel the text or the speech. If it is written translation and you do not have enough experience, it may take a lot of time to think about even one sentence. Every translator must be a very creative person. Sometimes it is even more difficult than to be a writer. Interpreters have to combine their perception and the author’s ideas. Moreover, they must do it very carefully not to distort the sense of the text. You must be ready to take responsibility for your translation.
The Russian philologist and translator Lilianna Lungina once said: “It is a great happiness to translate. I would compare the art of the translation only with music making. It is interpretation”. What a wonderful kind of art it is! Every translator should read the music of the original text. If you are not afraid of difficulties and if you are ready to learn to be such “a musician”, welcome to study linguistics.
Софья Белова:
Are you finishing your school? Do you wish to have the greatest time of your life in the future? Do you want a high salary? Would you like to never work, but always enjoy your time?
So, if this all is about you, you are probably in the situation of making an important choice. Your career, once taken up for a lifetime, will define your way of feeling about everything that is going on around you. That is why you have to think about every single aspect of your dream job.
Nowadays we have so many opportunities to communicate around the globe. Almost every country has many different sorts of relationships with other territories in the world. Studies show that only politically isolated North Korea is identified as monolingual. All these facts lead to the high increase in the popularity of the interpreter position. You may think that it is not hard at all, because you just have to know some foreign languages and it will be enough, but it is not.
Nataly Kelly, the VP of international operations and strategy of HubSpot, said, ‘Not everyone who knows how to write can be a writer. Not everyone who knows two languages can be a translator.’ This job requires some particular skills. Firstly, you need to have outstanding language skills, it means that you will be to read a lot, to always study the processes going on in a language and distinguish the tiniest nuances in it. Secondly, your job will be connected to the concrete sphere, for example, literature or technology, thus, you need to use the terms demanded and understand the main concepts. Thirdly, you will interact with people directly, if you do an oral translation, or through their thoughts, if it is a written translation, that will make you obliged to get them correctly.
Finally, do not be scared of this job! If you are intelligent and willing to develop your language skills, helping people to make contact, you should be in this profession. Anyway just follow your dreams and hobbies, and you will be satisfied with your work all your life.
Анжелика Литовченко:
Is it a dream or just a profession?
When I was a little fourteen-year-old girl, I started to love English. It wasn’t love at first sight, we had difficulties with English, but something has changed and still, we love each other. Since that moment I knew my future job will be connected with that language, it was my dream to learn English forever, to live in the speaking English area.
Now I went for translating. My desire to learn English is very strong and I’m sure that It’ll be a really advanced job. Being an interpreter isn’t as easy as it may seem. In my opinion, it’s one of the most difficult professions, but it’s very rewarding and stimulating.
An interpreter should always cope with new information on different areas because you’ll never know where your skills as a translator will be needed. For example, my teacher, who has her own English studio, also works with foreigners at the local factory and she has to be well-educated in the engineering and medical areas. Also, interpreters need to be really responsible for everything they tell working with people, they have to respect everyone they are working with. It may be very hard because sometimes they have no choice, it’s just their work. All the time interpreters study something new, they never stop to educate themselves and their memory is highly developed. That’s why this profession is stimulating.
But is it really rewarding? Yes, for sure it is! Interpreters have friends all around the world and they have an opportunity to travel and meet wonderful people, visit beautiful places, live a real life. Their area of thought is wide and they are really devoted people, they are devoted to language, they are devoted to their loves.
When I started to learn about this profession, I’ve become so happy because my dream is worthy to come true and my future profession is worthy to be called a dream. I am really happy.
Ольга Кашапова:
I know how hard it is to choose your future career. When you are a school leaver, it seems that you are too young to make one of the most important decisions in your life. But we can do nothing with it and still have to make a choice. So, if you are communicative and curious, why can’t you become an interpreter?
It may be your dream job for many reasons. You learn foreign language little by little and actually see the progress – you suddenly notice that you can express your thoughts not only in your native language; you can understand native speakers of the language you are learning and can even speak to them! It is a great feeling, the world becomes more open to you as you can learn something about other culture and meet new people. Also, this profession will help you know more about everything, and furthermore (and it can be even more satisfying), you can help other people know more by translating scientific articles or speeches on conferences. It is a very interesting job because you learn something new every day and I think that’s very rewarding to help people understand each other and the world around us.
I hope you will consider interpreting as a career since it is stimulating and extremely interesting. Don’t be afraid to try even if you are as shy as me, because you will beat your shyness as you’ll be interested in the subject, and it will make you feel even more satisfied. Good luck!
С Международным днём переводчика! Поступайте правильно и наслаждайтесь профессией!