A few weeks ago, we did an article on 10 best things about being a translator. Now, I aim to show the flip side of that article with the 7 things I hate about being a translator.
This is quite a personal article as I love my job, but there are certain things I hate about being a translator.
7 things I hate about being a translator
1. People who say “Can you just translate this?”
I get asked this a lot, my wife likes to introduce me to her friends by telling them I’m a translator. Normally, I get one guy, normally a boyfriend of my wife’s best friend, who thinks he can speak Spanish.
Normally, his grasp of the language is pitiful, and he makes himself look like a complete idiot in front of everyone.
Normally, one of my wife’s friends asks me to translate something (as in a couple of words) into Spanish. This is normally so that they can work it into a sentence to insult one of the other friends.
This normally ends with me chuckling as they have just called their own mother a horse or something equally as funny.
Most translators need to know the full context of what you are trying to say, as you wouldn’t say I observe the football match, you’d say I watch the football match. This is the same with other languages.
I personally despise this as in their attempt to insult their friend, they sound stupid. It really annoys me when someone messes up their Spanish, especially when they haven’t even tried to learn the language!
Whilst this is funny, it is also irritating as they are only using my skills for a 30 second joke, and is the main reasons I hate about being a translator at times!
2. Tight deadlines
I often get to choose which I work on, normally, I normally choose the longer format translations, as I find them the easiest to complete.
By choosing the longer format translations, I also get the longer deadline, I can normally translate 3500 words per day, do the formula normally goes as follows:
Number of Words ÷ Daily translation rate = Number of days
So if we had a translation of 11,000 words, it would go as follows:
11,000 ÷ 3500 = 3.14 days = 76 hours (rounded)
This, however, doesn’t take into account other variables, I have to pick my kids up from school, this takes 45 minutes because of traffic.
This means that I forgo 45 minutes of translation time each day, which means that 135 minutes (2 hours 15 minutes). This normally ends up with me being short of time nearer the end of my deadline.
I am normally quite good at getting my work in on deadline, because I usually put in an extra hour on the two previous days to account for the 2 hours I miss. Sometimes, I find that some deadlines are far too unrealistic.
I had a project recently where I had to translate a document in the financial sector- I was given 36 hours to complete it, I had done it in less than 24 hours.
On the other hand, I had another document recently, also in the financial sector, I was given 72 hours, this was simply too unrealistic for the complexity of the document.
I ended up getting he document completely translated in 80 hours, which wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be.
This is the thing I hate about being a translator the most! I totally understand why translation companies do this, it just isn’t the best system at times!
3. Translating jokes
An interpreter friend has the same thing- we both absolutely hate being forced to translate jokes. It isn’t the translation that’s the problem, but the joke itself that is the problem.
This is because what is considered funny in say, English, isn’t in another, say, Spanish.
This means we have to be creative- this takes the most time, I remember on time, a joke took me nearly 10 minutes to translate! I spoke with a few translator-friends of mine, the highest number I got was closer to 25 minutes!
The problem is usually creating the sense of humour- a joke that is in bad taste in English might be absolutely hilarious in another language, or be not funny whatsoever.
There is no set translation for each joke, which means that we spend time we could’ve spent translating, going through 100 different potential jokes.
I normally get around this by writing down 5-10 potential jokes, and figuring out which ones are the best to use. For the jokes I don’t use, I write down, in case I need to use them in the future.
This is my personal bugbear as a translator, and is one of the main reasons I sometimes hate about being a translator.
4. Being the third wheel
Thankfully, I have never had this, but I know of quite a few people who have had this issue with friends or even family members.
A friend of mine, and our mutual friend had been quite good friends for a while, she had a crush on this exchange student who came over. This is a main reason about what he hates about being a translator.
My friend is a French translator, and this girl his friend happened to like, just happened to be from Paris. Bingo, our mutual friend thought! He used my friend to start flirting with the girl he liked. This really annoyed my friend as he also liked the French exchange student.
My friend got tired of being the interpreter for our mutual friend, and told our mutual friend to learn French or abandon the crush.
When our mutual friend refused, and continued to use my friend to be the interpreter, my friend refused. My friend then made our mutual friend out to be quite arrogant and not particularly attractive.
This too happened to me, although it was my sister with a Mexican man. It annoys translators, as we know this relationship won’t last, if they’re relying on a friend to allow them to communicate.
It is personally a bugbear of mine, and is one of the reasons I sometimes hate about being a translator.
5. People who think translating is easy
I have some friends that are not translators, nor work in the translation industry, sometimes, we have a conversation about work.
When I talk about my latest project or something with work, one of my friends say: “So what? Translation isn’t even that difficult, you just take one word and put it in another language.”
They normally then go into how they have an annoying or arrogant boss and how they sit in front of a screen all day. They normally then say about how we (translators) just sit and do nothing, only writing.
They normally tell me how my job is easy, and we don’t deserve the amount of money we make. Personally, I think this is complete rubbish, translation is one of the most stressful jobs- we only need to make one error, and that is our career over.
Most translators know this, and it hangs over all of our heads, every time we do a piece of translation work. This is a bugbear of translators everywhere, and can sometimes be the biggest factor in what people hate about being a translator.
6. Translating Idioms
Translating idioms is much like translating jokes- and translators hate them both equally! This is because, much like jokes, there are no set translations for them, the depend on the context.
It is another thing I hate about being a translator- sometimes, you just can’t work it into context. This is one of the most worrying things- you constantly worry that this will be an essential part of the translation. I personally worry that if I don’t work it into context, it will mean something later in the document.
It is the biggest bugbear of new translators especially, and is the major thing they hate about being a translator. Soon, they will find other reasons to hate about being a translator, but normally, I think that being a translator is a great job!
7. Forgetting the right word at precisely the wrong time
Whilst this is not really a bugbear of mine, it is of my friends, and is one of the main thing they hate about being a translator. Normally, we find that forgetting the right word at the wrong time is really frustrating.
I normally get around this by having three Spanish-English dictionaries, two pocket size and one “Queen of all dictionaries” as my wife puts it. I can normally use that to get me out of that hole, it’s normally just incredibly frustrating!
As translator, we always have words floating around in our heads, and it is just so frustrating when you can’t get it! That’s why I think that most translators find this is what they hate about being a translator- the annoyance that you know it, you just can’t place it!
I hope you enjoyed this article on 7 things I hate about being a translator. I could’ve written an article entitled 15 things I hate about being a translator, but that would’ve been too exhaustive of a list.
If you are looking for a translation service provider, please contact us!