A Translator’s Skillset: 5 Skills You Didn’t Know You Needed

Most people don’t know that translators do more than change words from one language to another. In fact, a translator often wears many hats, which makes us our clients’ partner when it comes to communication.

Translators are generally “word people.” Our goal is to make communication easy for our clients, whether it means communicating across cultures or simply harnessing the power of words. While a good translation effectively transmits information from one language to another, it also requires a polished, exact transfer of tone and style from the original to the translated text. Given that, the most important skill a translator must have is excellent writing skills. Just as the original text must be written well, so must its translation.

Beyond knowing a foreign language and writing well, many translators offer additional services that leverage their writing skills. Here are five skills that translators offer to their clients to improve the quality of their written content.

1. Copyediting

• Unilingual revision of texts to ensure that they are clear, concise and consistent
• Addition of headlines, standardized headers and footers, pull quotes and photo captions
• Checks for grammatical errors as well as for syntax, punctuation and proper style

2. Bilingual revision

• Comparison of a translation to its original text to ensure accuracy, clarity, and completeness
• Suggestions for areas needing clarification or context-specific terminology
• Checks for grammatical errors as well as for syntax, punctuation and proper style

3. Proofreading

• Final review of formatted content
• Correction of typos, misspellings and omissions
• Verification of layout to ensure proper line breaks

4. Subtitle translation

• Translation of subtitles with time codes, provided in subtitle file formats

5. Transcreation/Localization

• Translation and adaptation of texts to transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries
• Re-creation of promotional ads and texts specific to a location or culture to target local or global markets

In short, a translator is often a copyeditor, reviser, proofreader and bilingual communications expert all at once, making them an essential collaborator when it comes to written communication. From the original text to the published content, we accompany our clients every step of the way.