(By the way, an important distinction should be made here: like many professionals of all areas, it really annoys me when big companies call for volunteers to translate or “crowdsource” their materials for free. There are many charitable and humanitarian associations that rely mainly on donations and don’t have a budget for translation, and that could really use our help. We can benefit greatly from working around subjects that impact other people’s lives and – why not? – the world we live in in the very least, we benefit from developing a wider understanding of different themes and communities.
We all know that both language and, in a wider sense, information, are tools that can be used to divide and deprive people or, inversely, to join them around a common cause or belief.Īpart from our paying jobs, translators can choose what kind of information they believe is important spreading, and volunteer to share such information. If we take a good look around, we can identify many causes that are worth spreading information about, but remain restricted to smaller communities or groups due to linguistic barriers. Usually, we are avid readers, researchers and communicators, and we are always working towards understanding as best we can someone else’s point of view and sharing it with different audiences.īut maybe after a while working daily with translation, we might start taking for granted the invaluable access we have to information, and we might end up applying our skill sets in a way that is much more restricted than it has to be – after all, such skills can be applied to raising awareness and promoting education about important issues. But afterwards, all of this hard work gives us translators access to an unbelievable amount of information and, very often, a background that allows us to be more understanding of other cultures. It takes a great deal of studying, reading, writing, practicing and learning from mistakes and experience. Today, Elis Portela talks about pro bono translation and also suggests a couple of serious organizations we can help if we like.īeing a good translator is a lot of hard work, but it is also a great privilege. Here we are again, with another guest post.
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