What’s on your mind when you hear someone offers you to be a translator and involved in numerous tasks that make you stick with a mount of articles?Regardless of the earnings that you can make from this profession, do you have any idea to depict the value of yourself if you can dive into this language-related field?
You should do! As the saying goes, do what you love and love what you do. Unless you grasp the understanding about how mind-blowing the facts of the translation world is, you will only create your surrounding perception that this job is what a nerd is doing to catch some wordy ideas.
The matters of language and Linguistics exists as the open door of knowledge and the bridge of cultural communication, being one of the reasons for the translation as a language-related business sector. Yes, and this is what we do. Linguwiz is thriving in this circle, providing our customers with the utmost services in professional translation and interpretation.
Five Marvelous Facts About Translation You NEED to Know. – Our presence is not only with several boring and time-consuming tasks. It is even more than that you can imagine, as we nurture our working environment with the value of love and pride among our experts regarding the job we are involved in. We also enlighten people that translation is accessible for all.
So, the core of translation might go, how do we genuinely grow interest in this field, which some might perceive as a mere reading-to-writing or listening-to-speaking task? You are going to sail away after catching the following top five most outstanding facts about your career as a translator.
1. The history, the stepping stone of the translation to exist
Everything departed from the ancient epoch, so did translation. It is believed that The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving literary work from the human endeavor that depicted an ancient cuneiform writing system and emerged in Mesopotamia around 2700 BCE. The translations of Gilgamesh were then translated into Asiatic languages around 2000 BCE, making translation a pretty old profession.
Later on, with the presence of religion that dominated the life of people, religious leaders started to considered the provision of religious records in various languages. Regarding the fact, the Old Testament became the first religious script that was translated into Greek in around the third century BC.
2. The International Translation Day
St. Jerome is acknowledged as the translator in Christian history that worked on the direct translation of the Old Testament into Latin from the original Hebrew. He was born in 347 and died near Bethlehem in his 73rd age on 30 September 420. The day of his death was then commemorated as the International Day of Translation.
His contribution had also encouraged the United Nations (UN) to invite all its staff, accredited permanent mission staff, and students from selected partner universities to compete in the UN St. Jerome Translation Contest. It is a contest which rewards the best translations in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, as well as German, as part of the celebration of multilingualism that highlights the important role of translators and other language professionals in multilateral diplomacy.
3. The Top Three Translators
Index Translationum is an online database created by UNESCO. It saves a list of all the books translated all over the world. Based on the data, Agatha Christie, Jules Verne, and William Shakespeare were listed as the top three influencing figures that had worked on numerous translation products, respectively 7,233; 4,751; and 4,293 works.
So, we believe this is why translator/interpreter’s working hours and experiences always become a substantial point for certain companies’ consideration in recruiting their translator staff. For your information, recent studies have calculated that there are over 330,000 professional translators worldwide. If you are pursuing this field, you are among them on the list!
4. Well-Known Language Pairs
Language is considered to be about 200,000 years old. With the advancement in technology, translation has become more modern. French, Spanish, German, and Japanese are the fantastic four of the most common source languages of translation. Meanwhile, English, French, German, Italian, and Russian are the most targeted languages. During the first decade of the 21st century, over 75% of books from 2000 to 2010 were translated into French or German, while the translation into Chinese only shared 5%.
It is sufficient to be the basis for every young translation that is departing with this career to master not only English. As the industry grows, there will be more numbers of language that penetrate into our business sector. As for Indonesia with its potential resources, a number of foreign investors, such as the Netherlands, Japan, and Korea have also been competing to build their projects in the country, ranging from waste-to-energy power plants to rapid rail transportation.
Sooner, their languages will appear as the trends in our translation industry. Challenging yet promising, the mastery of multiple languages will take us further to go, as if you board on a bigger boat, you will be able to sail a wider ocean.
5. Translation Market
According to a Germany online statistics portal Statista, the size of the overall language industry is estimated at USD 49.6 billion in 2019 with the potential to reach US$56 billion by 2021. This value absolutely designs translation as a sector with a bright future for investors.
Meanwhile, a global translation research provider Slator.com highlighted that the priciest language pairs in the USA are English – Japanese and English – Korean, with the average price reaching USD 0.57 per word. For instance, in this case, the translation of a one-page document from English to Japanese or to Korean will cost you USD 143!
It always takes time for a caterpillar to become a butterfly. If you are currently a beginner in this industry, you need to bear these facts in mind to encourage you in stepping further and elevating your language mastery.
The advance of technologies has provided us with accessible and affordable information to sharpen our competencies and skills, in addition to schedule direct learnings with experts and involved in several trainings. Are you eager now to climb higher?
Linguwiz is present as your reference in this field. We periodically organize seminars and trainings to grow more professionals in translation industry. Apart from that, we also provide relevant translation and localization services in accordance with your business requirements or academic purposes. For further information, contact us!
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