The Art of Financial Translation

Put your writing skills first says James Sievert

I believe that my speciality, financial translation, like all writing, requires an element of imagination. And if there is one tip I have picked up in my years as a translator, it is this: keep notes of what you read or observe. You will probably be able to use the information later.

Plagiarism can be a financial translator's best friend, because much of the information we translate has already appeared elsewhere in a similar form. Of course, by plagiarism I don't mean copying another author's text word for word. But you can save yourself from struggling to find the right word by looking how other writers have tackled the subject.

Financial translators are journalists third removed. Financial analysts writing reports on individual stocks, markets or regions are journalists twice removed. They get their information from news reports, and you get your information from them. It makes sense for the translator to go to the source, to the original copy that was the basis of the analyst's report.

An essential part of the financial translator's job therefore is not writing, but reading. Save the important financial news of the day for future reference. And try keeping a list of key verbs you can draw on as required. After all, no matter what the source language might say, the verbs for financial translation stay the same.

Stocks have their idiosyncrasies, bonds have theirs. When they are feeling good, stocks ‘jump’, ‘soar’ and ‘surge’. When bonds move, they can only ‘edge up’ or ‘inch higher’. The translator can simply ignore the original verb except obviously in terms of whether it’s going up or down – and plug in the right action verb from their list.

Overall you need to take an "ironic stance" and stand back from the source text to achieve a final product that has a ring of authenticity. If you look up the dictionary definition of 'translate', it actually says it is to 'express the sense of a word (sentence, speech, etc) in another language'. I think that's an important point for translators to bear in mind - it is insuring that sense of the translated version is the same as the original word or phrase.

I believe translators should think of themselves first and foremost as writers. Don't take the source too literally - and don't let it fool you. Try and look at it from a fresh angle. Approach it not as a sacred document, but as a malleable set of notes. The author wants to communicate to investors their view in the world markets. I take the key ideas, and write my own sentence, using the kind of strong verb-based writing you will find in the principal press. We have to write the way readers of the Wall street Journal or the Yahoo financial page are used to seeing.

I recently received a 15-page macro-economic report of China to translate from Italian into English. By the time I got the analyst's report, I already knew roughly what it was going to cover – overheating economy, balance of trade surplus with the United Sates, shaking banking system, China becoming the workshop of the world, China as a huge importer of commodities. And a quick Internet search found half a dozen relevant articles on the subject of China's economy.

So now I was ready to translate the article. Yes, write, not translate. Ready to give an English voice to a struggling writer of Italian. I can zip through the report, sentence by sentence, because I am not thinking about translating the text. I am ghostwriting for an analyst who has trouble expressing himself in English.

I know what he wants to say, because I know what the key issues are. I am not translating out of a foreign language, I am rewriting a set of sloppy put together notes. And because I’ve done my homework, I have an array of appropriate, succinct and meaningful words and phrases at my disposal.

And when I've finished, I swap my writers hat for my sub-editor's hat and read it through, tweaking it to make sure it not only makes sense, but it flows easily. This is usually the point where you spot the unnecessary phrases that can sneak in, like ‘in order to’ when you just need to say ‘to’.

Some people might fear this "journalistic" approach, thinking it carries a greater risk of inaccuracy. I suppose legal texts might need to remain very close to the original, but in general translators should be able to find the right balance between creativity and accuracy.

Another advantage of working this way, from the freelance translator’s view in particular, is that it can speed things up. But ‘writing’ rather than ‘translating’ you are less likely to get bogged down in trying to make sense of cumbersome sentence structure and you’ll find you can work faster while still producing more readable copy.

Practical tips

• Keep a note of words and phrases you come across that you may be able to use as an alternative to trite terms or ponderous phrases.
• Write like a journalist, with a basic new story structure in your mind as a template. This should cover the key facts: who, what, where, when and why.
• Use active verbs – keep a list of ‘good’ verbs like boost or drive.
• Forget about adverbs – they rarely add anything.
• ‘Read with your pencil’ – in other words, always question how what you are translating is written, and where it has the authentic tone of the language into which it is being translated.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 904