Recently a friend told me that his carpenters removed some “bursts” from a piece of furniture they were making and I said, “you mean burr” and he said “well, that’s what the carpenter said,” and I said, “well, it’s wrong. “
I recently also had a client who claimed that a translation contained an incorrect usage of word. The word in question was “eccentric”. According to the customer, his English-speaking employee told him he was incorrect and that “excentric” was right.
The fact that we are native speakers of a language does not make us experts in it. Unfortunately, there are still many people who cannot speak their language correctly, either in spoken or written form, and we can not trust them to advise us in matters of this kind.
There may even be experts in their profession, as in the case of those carpenters working with my friend, who will surely make you an exquisitely designed table, but perhaps their training was more practical than academic and is therefore not focused on the exact terminology.
Therefore, it is very important to use language professionals, who trained and cultivated in the study of language and its application to various fields of expertise.
When building a house, you hire a good architect and not some “quick fixer” who might end up building a shack that won’t even stand up on its own, so why not do the same with your translation or interpretation needs?
If a company plans to enter the international market or reach a particular audience in a language other than their own, it must be aware of the importance of a well-written text without spelling errors that also sounds 100% natural for the person reading it.
I think it is essential that businesses understand why it is essential to communicate faithfully and correctly in the target language.
(Spanish version: https://www.trustedtranslations.com/no-cualquiera-puede-ser-traductor-2010-12-03.html)
