Today, information technology (IT) is one of the most discussedfields. It also requires interpreters to look up information and learn a lot to deliver the most accurate translation. Let’s listen to an IT interpreterat SK Translate to get some valuable tips when you work in this field!
Understand the importance of being aware of your own limits
IT is a technical field just like law or healthcare. IT interpretation requires extensive research if you are not an expert nor much interested in technology. Although you can compensate for your lack of background knowledge by reading documents provided by customers and doing research, it is nearly impossible to gain an in-depth understanding overnight. Therefore, choose your missions wisely according to your abilities.
Keep the English terminology unchanged.
This is something I used to question myself before realizing that: the more I try to interpreteterminology, the more difficult it becomes for IT professionals to understand because they mostly use English terminology. For example, for English-Vietnamese language pair, there are many IT terms that do not have synonyms in Vietnamese, or those words are new and not yet popular among professionals. However, this also depends a lot on the listeners. If you’re interpreting for people who are not experts in that major, it is best to try to explain those terms. On the contrary, if you are interpreting for professionals, perhaps English terms will be more familiar to them.
I thought I knew it, but no…
Common terms like “big data”, “AI” (artificial intelligence) or “cloud” (cloud computing) sound so familiar thatlots of people might think, “Oh, I know these words.” But is that really the case? I cannot stress enough the importance of gaining a deep understanding of terminology. Especially for people who are not trained in IT like me,there’s no other choice but to spend time enhancingbackground knowledge. Although I may not be a professional yet, I hope that I’m still a better interpreter than “Ms. Google”.
Please share your IT interpretation tips with us!
