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How can you differentiate between a professional and an amateur translator?

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Question added by Sarah Ali , Senior Evaluation Specialist , United Nations
Date Posted: 2017/03/26

I would identify his/her field of speciality first and then ask the appropriate question because translators supposed to be specialized and the common belief of being a translator to many people is just wrong. I have just applied to an agency who're looking for translators who are specialized in translating legal documents and technical writing from English to Arabic and vise versa. Hope this brief answer would help ! Good luck ,,, 

A professional translator provides high-quality products in terms of grammar, stylistics, format, punctuation, spelling. He or she uses industry specific terminology, meets clients' requirements and the required deadlines. And an amateur translator may fail to do the above.

By the way they approach the language and also how they deal with a complex sentence.

But one thing stands above all:

How a person chooses the most suitable context!

Hussein Karamyar
by Hussein Karamyar , translator , Tehran Times

By reading his or her translation and its comparison with standards of professional translation, one can readily find out if the translation is professionally oriented or done by an inexperienced translator. 

Abeh Ernest  NDEH
by Abeh Ernest NDEH , FRONT OFFICE ATTENDANT , BLUE CANARY

Professional translator is some one with experience in translating whereas am amateur is a personne with little or no experience

The profissional translator tries to aviod literal translation with keeping the content of the document, moreover he must think critically. He/She must transfer the text accuratly, and must know at least 90% of the tremenology.

The linguistic never makes mistakes in grammer nor in sentences-structure.

Professional translator can do his job with clear, short, specific words, and high formulation Concurrent with precision and accurancy.

A professional translator will always pay due diligence in using the established terminology in the field to which the translated document belongs. This means a professional translator will either have references to standard translations of terminologies between the two languages he/she is dealing with, or have enough experience to memorize such translations. In other words, a professional translator cares to educate himself/herself professionally in the craft of translation, instead of depending solely on his/her general linguistic excellence in both languages.

ABDUR RAZZAQUE ABDULLAH
by ABDUR RAZZAQUE ABDULLAH , Accountant , DAR HAJAR CARPETS

A professional translator not take much time and uses industry specific terminology when amateur translator do work against.

Karen Agha
by Karen Agha , translator , OK Translation

In a Legal translation, the  professional translator can choose the term that perfectly suits the meaning, meanwhile an amateur might get lost and hesitate whether to put a specific term in its place or not. adding to this, if we want to compare between an amateur and a professional translator in general, the latter has a large cultural background unlike the first.

السيد شوقى احمد مصطفى مصطفى
by السيد شوقى احمد مصطفى مصطفى , رئيس قسم الترجمة بمستشفى الملك سعود -عنيزة القصيم , شركة الزامل للتشغيل والصيانة- القصيم -المملكة العربية السعودية

Professional translator can do the jop with high quality , good formulation and accuracy 

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