Book List
What I am Reading Right now
- Vom Schweigen meines Übersetzers von Hans-Ulrich Möhring
- Mittagsfrau von Julia Franck
- Dresden: Tuesday February 13, 1945 by Frederick Taylor
Suggested Reading for Translators
- After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation by George Steiner
- The Translator’s Handbook Sixth Edition now available newly revised (2006) by Morry Sofer
- How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator by Corinne McKay
- Becoming a Translator: An introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation by Douglas H. Robinson
- Translation: An Advanced Resource Book by Basil Hatem
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you encourage the hiring of non-academic translators /interpreters in Departments of Translation/Interpreting?
I don’t think any person should be judged on academic merits alone. There are plenty of highly-educated people who are not good writers for example. Being able to write in your native language is a prerequisite for being a good translator, in my opinion. That’s why it is more important to look at a person’s skills and experience in addition to academic qualifications.
I’ve found that many of the academics teaching and evaluating translations would know a good one if it was placed beneath them and lit on fire to get their attention. A bunch of academic fools decided a few years ago that I translate better into German than into my native language. That destroyed the last scrap of respect I had for academia, and I think the best thing that could happen for university translation programs would be to involve greater numbers of competently communicative translators from the real world.