In 2016, I helped draft Aprotrad’s Best practices (in French), when I was their secretary. It gave me the opportunity to think about my work, and how my colleagues viewed it.
Specifically, two points seem to me the most important, but not necessarily the most obvious (unlike confidentiality and the respect of the law).
Translate into one’s native language
To translate, you have to write, preferably as perfectly as possible. Which means you need an excellent mastery of the language into which you translate, and you can only have that – in theory – in your native language. Even decades-long study (and love) of a foreign language cannot yield the same fluidity and ease as your “natural” language. I’m sure this text is not as good as its French counterpart.
Which is why I only translate into French, and why this post was proofread by an English native speaker.
We do not neglect our source languages, at least I don’t, but we do not speak them as well as the one we have been practising since childhood. Some people can of course be bilingual and therefore translate into both languages, but it remains rare.
Professional development
The world changes, and so do the tools we use and the environments in which translators, like everybody else, live. Some even become obsolete and get replaced by others. We have to adapt to such changes and learn new ways to work and keep up to date.
Besides, translators are curious by nature, and it drives us to acquire new specialties (legal, medical, etc.), and to improve our skills in the fields we already know. And sometimes, we just want to explore contiguous areas of expertise.
Training does not have to mean listening to a teacher in a “classroom” full of other fellow students. Reading articles about our favourite subjects, attending conferences are a more informal way of acquiring new knowledge. Even social media can be useful!
So long as our skillset does not remain stagnant, we learn, and we get better at our job.
In my opinion, a good translator has to master both their language and their fields of expertise, cultivate their strength and work on their weaknesses. That’s what differentiates a professional from an amateur.