One of the famous saying you would probably hear from a translator is “I’m not a dictionary”. Because we are not. A translator is never judged by the amount of words he/she knows. Otherwise, a good translator uses a set of tools, on which he/she relies to deliver top-notch translation. If you aspire to be a good translator, make sure to have these tools around.
Dictionaries
Whether classic hard-copy dictionaries or online dictionaries, a translator always needs to have monolingual and bilingual dictionaries by their side. And, the rule goes as follows: you don’t only check the meaning of the words you don’t know, but also you double check every word you know.
Search Engines
Translators don’t translate words, they translate contexts and cultures. They sometimes need to go beyond words and dig deep in background topics, to ensure that they fully understand the meaning of the texts in the context they are translating.
Transliteration Tools
Phonetic rules differ from one language to another. A translator does not necessarily know the phonetic rules of all the world languages, but he/she can use some reliable transliteration tools to pronounce a foreign word or name correctly, and then transliterate them into their own language.
Cat Tools
Translators sometimes have to deal with huge long-term projects and remembering every detail of such projects actually surpasses the abilities of a human memory. Therefore, translators usually need to use computer-assisted translation tools that ease the translation process, with their user-friendly interfaces and translation memories.
Spell Checker
No matter how meticulous you are, typographies are some of the common human mistakes. So every translator definitely needs to use a spell checker to ensure that their translated text is error-free after their final revision.
Tools always help us to deliver better quality. Always trust a translator who has such tools by his/her side.