After reading a glimpse of the translation work, let’s say you are now interested in being a translator: How do I start? What do I need? When do I work? Beginner translators frequently ask these. Before exploring the “how is” in translation work, let’s talk about the “what is”. As easy as it may seem, translation does not only require your accurate word-per-word transfer between a source with a target language; in fact, it is beyond your dictionary. When doing translation work, we involve context, history, culture, jargon, and many more. So, do not rely only on your dictionary: read and research! Can movies help with our practice? They sure can! Audio-visual translators are masters in this field, not only as a practice but also their job to translate the actors’ lines and not lose the ‘feel’ and meaning of the source language. Researching movies is helpful since they always have a context and sometimes a handful of jargons to enrich our vocabulary.

What are the translation-work categories? Many articles or translators offer different opinions, but they agree on the following three: technical translation, legal translation, and literary translation. Broadly speaking, technical translation ranges from texts using specific or technical terms in a particular field; it could be a machine’s user-manual or a scientific article. Technical translators are knowledgeable on a particular field or subject; they know the jargon and the context.

The second category, a legal translation involves documents such as company contracts, birth certificate, university transcripts, and many more; this type of translation deals with, as the name suggests, legal settings and purposes. The legal translation may also work with documents related to law (a court) and regulations. The translators are most likely certified (in Indonesia, the certification test is held by HPI – Himpunan Penerjemah Indonesia) and well-trained on legal terms, knowledge, and contexts.

The last one, literary translation, is the one that does not work with literal translation – it relies heavily on the translator skill to ‘beautifully’ transfer the source language of a poem, for example. It needs creativity and sufficient knowledge of literary-work or ‘art’ diction. Literary translators must accurately convey the author’s meaning and tone; otherwise, the translated prose’s readers would be very misled. All three categories have their perks and challenges, but it is not a mission impossible. As asserted in my previous article, you don’t have to be a linguist to translate. Keep practicing, and you’ll get the hang of it in no time!