Working as a translator is exciting. It comes along with a variety of challenges, but you will eventually fall in love with what you do. Before you start working as a translator, it is also worthy to take a look at some of the facts about the industry. Then you can make up your mind and approach the work available for you to do. It can assist you to end up with the best possible returns at the end of the day. 

Being bilingual doesn’t mean that you can become a translator 

Most of the people believe that being bilingual can help them to go ahead and become a translator. This fact is not true at all. You will be able to translate words by being bilingual. However, it doesn’t provide you with the ability to get a professional outcome with your translation capabilities. 

The process of translation is not easy as you think. It requires an extensive knowledge in many different areas. In addition to that, you need to have a solid understanding about appropriate translation techniques, which need to be used at the time of getting the job done. 

For example, there are cultural differences in between the two languages that you translate. You must have a solid understanding about these cultural differences before you proceed with translations. Then you will be able to get your work done accordingly and ensure that the final piece of translated text matches with the context of the culture. Otherwise, you will not be doing a good job with your translations. 

Due to these reasons, you need to understand that being bilingual is not enough for you to become a translator. You need to understand that it is an independent profession. You need to have both skill as well as versatility to become a translator. This is the same reason why most of the people who want to become translators tend to polish their skills and acquire appropriate educational qualifications as well. 

Translations are done word by word 

Some of the people believe that translations are being done word by word. This is another common mistake that most of the people have. Word by word translations are not really translations. You will just be converting the words into another language and it will never be able to help you end up with positive results. The final output will be filled with mistakes and you will never be able to present it. The style, expressions and tone would be completely different from one language to another. You need to keep this in mind and proceed with translations. 

This can be considered as the biggest mistake why some of the machine translators, such as Google Translate are not in a position to deliver quality results. They are not taking subtlety of the language into consideration when offering results. Hence, word by word translations are not in a position to deliver the expected quality standards to you. 

Becoming a translator is easy 

There are people who believe that becoming a translator is an easy thing to do. This is one of the biggest mistakes that they do as well. It is never too easy for you to become a translator. You will need to have a solid understanding about the translation process to become a high quality translator. 

When we think about freelance translators, we imagine the people who work from their home in front of the computers, in pajamas. You will also believe that translators are provided with a flexible work schedule to focus on. However, the reality is quite different. Most of the translators go use their minds extensively to get the most out of translations. There are instances when the translators spend few hours to get just a single sentence translated. That’s because they need to make sure that right expression or word is selected, which fits perfectly well into the context. Otherwise, you will not be able to end up with the results that you expect. 

In the meantime, translators have to work on tight schedules as well. That’s because clients often bring their work to translators in the last minute. You will also need to go through the translations that you do several times in order to make sure that the result is perfect. Due to all these reasons, translators are having a busy and a tight schedule at most of the instances. 

Translations can be done for free 

It is possible for you to find a large number of online translator tools. Google Translate is one of the best options out of them to consider. Due to the presence of such tools, most of the people tend to assume that translations can be done for free. 

The online free translation tools are designed to translate word by word. They are not in a position to create perfect translations. You will still need to put some manual effort to get quality outcomes from the translation work that you do. That’s why it is important to pay extra attention towards the translation work. Even if you are a professional translator, you should not take a look at these tools.

English translations can help you reach universal public 

It is true that English is the most widespread language in the world. However, getting your website translated into English will not provide you with the chance to experience all benefits that come along with it. 

From the recent studies, it has been identified that people tend to have less trust on the websites that they cannot read in their own languages. Therefore, you need to think about getting your website translated to at least 14 different languages. Then you can make sure that your website is accessible for 80% of population in the world, in their own languages.