Medical Translation Insight

The Blogging Translator, listing take-aways from ITI's Style Matters translation workshop, mentioned the following:

Remember that as a translator you're also a professional writer

Too often, this gets overlooked along the translation service-delivery chain. The focus of clients and language service providers is usually on any combination of price, schedule, or "mechanical" quality. Style gets ignored if not downright discouraged.

It is refreshing to see his list of tips. Similarly, his suggested reading list should be on every linguist's bookshelf:

• Stephen King On Writing
• William Zinsser On Writing Well
• Jack Lynch 'Online Usage and Style Guide'
• The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market

The ability to produce polished text, no matter how rough the original text, is one of the factors that distinguishes top-end translation service providers - and allows them to charge more for their services!


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