Traduction technique, interprétariat et coaching en anglais

When you define yourself as a "technical translator", it is like saying you are a "medical professional". There is a world of difference between a brain surgeon and a veterinary nurse. Alright, so the consequences in translation are not as serious - or are they?

Technical can mean anything from the geological makeup of a rock deposit in the Sahara to the manufacturing process of an organic pig feed. No one can possible "know" such a vast range of topics. I have already mentioned how a translator becomes specialised over the years, but even within a wide specialisation, how is it possible to determine rapidly if a document is "up your street" or not?

This week (and last), I have been learning about crude oil processing, distillation, cut-points and fractionation indices. Whew! I had never seen the word "fractionation" before. I had no idea crude oil could be "cracked" or that it contained such a thing as "aromatics". This is all terminology - easily findable on the web, fairly easy to grasp with the help of Wikipedia and other sources. In fact, the underlying language is computers and mathematics, two areas I am familiar and comfortable with.

Take this sentence for example:

N1 représente la pente rouge (ln(bi/di)<0) et N2 représente la pente bleue(ln(bi/di)>0). Plus la pente est forte, plus l’indice est élevé et meilleure est le fractionnement.

It's not as complicated as it seems. And the graph helps enormously.

Moral of the story: examine the underlying language of a text. Don't be put off by a client that tells you the text concerns crude oil processing.

Now, I am not going to add crude oil processing to my list of specialities, but it rather fits in nicely with the generic "energy", under the more generic "environment" speciality. All I have to do now is find a conversation in which to drop my new-found fractionation knowledge...!