Five Tips For Translating Technical Documents To English

To translate technical document, the following five tips are to be borne in mind:-

(1) Originality should be maintained

While translating a technical document from one language to another language, which happens to be English, in this case, the originality of the document should be kept intact, to the best of one’s ability. The translation should be to the point. Different meanings and interpretations should be avoided. Some times, it is very difficult to find the equivalent English word. In this case you can make genuine interpretations after referring to a good source language dictionary.

(2) Sound knowledge of the source language

The source language can be Russian, Arabic, French, Urdu, Japanese or any other. For example, here we may assume that you are translating a technical document from Russian to English.You should have sound knowledge of Russian as well as the subject that the document is related to. You may refer to Russian dictionaries to understand Russian words with their equivalent English words.

(3) Good knowledge of English

Once you are translating a technical document into English, it is imperative that your knowledge of English should be very good. It will be very difficult to translate from multiple foreign languages into English, because this requires a lot of expertise in the source language as well as English. For translating technical words from source language to English, you should have very good dictionaries and reference books on the subject.

(4) Thorough knowledge about the technical subject

We presume that you have a fair amount of knowledge in the source language from which you are translating a technical document, as well as English, into which you will be translating. One of the most important requirements is an understanding of the technical background of the subject area. Your understanding of the document is a must, before under taking the translation to a fair degree of perfection. A perfect combination of all three is required: Command over the source language, English as well as the subject area.

(5) Common Sense

There will be instances where it is not possible to exactly translate a technical document from source language to English due to paucity/ availibilty of technical words in English or vice-versa. In this case, once you have understood the technical matter, you will have to use your common sense while translating. The meaning of the context should not be changed or altered. Experience will be gained by practicing constantly. Once experienced; you can undertake these translations with ease.