Hiring a Native Speaker
If there’s one thing I wish people outside the industry understood about translation it’s this: you should only ever ask people to translate into their native language. You’d be surprised how often this comes up. From friends and family asking me about my work, to recruiters contacting me with job opportunities, it seems that I am constantly debunking the myth that I translate into German. And, in most cases, I can see where it comes from. I mean, I speak German, I have a German degree and I’ve written plenty of German essays over the years. Why is it then that I only ever translate from German into English and not the other way around?
The simple answer is that best practice says you should always translate into your native language. Any professional translator knows this. The reasoning is that fluency isn’t enough when it comes to writing flawless translations that are fit for print. You need the deeply nuanced and intuitive understanding of a language that only a native-level speaker has. Your foreign language skills must, of course, be impeccable, but this is to ensure that you perfectly understand the linguistic and cultural implications of the text you are translating. You should always write in your native language.
That being the case, I still often see job advertisements that want somebody to translate “German into English and vice versa”, or I hear about companies trying to recruit native English-speakers to translate their content into German. In one instance, I made it all the way to the interview stage of a job application process before I realised the company was looking for an English into German translator. The advertisement hadn’t made it clear, and I’d naively assumed that the recruiters had read my CV and knew what it meant to hire a native English-speaking translator. It’s obvious that, outside of the translation industry, individuals and companies aren’t aware that there’s any real issue with people translating into a language when they don’t have native-speaker proficiency. So, what are these issues?
In the vast majority of cases, readers (especially native speakers) can tell if an author of a text isn’t writing in their first language. Even if the grammar is completely accurate, there will often be problems with register and atypical phrasing. The writer might struggle with idioms or use words with undesirable double meanings. The results can be pretty embarrassing for the company or individuals involved – funny sometimes, but often embarrassing.
In certain situations, you might get away with it, but the risks are high. If you’re trying to produce professional marketing copy, for example, you’re in danger of alienating your target readers. There's a high possibility that your translator might write something unintentionally offensive and, even if they don’t, you have to think what it does for your overall brand image. Basically, it sends the message that a company doesn’t have the resources to invest in proper translation services, and that they don’t respect their audience enough to deliver them perfectly localised content. There may very well be complaints.
As a reputable translator, I made a decision early on that, even if a company wanted to offer me good money to translate content into German, I wasn’t going to do it. I just don’t feel comfortable providing a service that is inherently limited due to the fact that I am not a native German speaker. It doesn’t matter that I have a German degree, have lived in Germany and interact with the German language on a daily basis, my German is still second-language German. I don’t have the same instinctive understanding of how to write flowing, emotive prose that a native speaker has.
My job as a German into English translator is to understand German texts perfectly and to re-create their meanings accurately, fluently and authentically in my native language of English. It’s what I’m trained to do and, hopefully, something I do very well.